By Michael S. Hoey
Correspondent
The Delavan-Darien School District will have five meetings to gain input from the public about the possibility of rearranging grade levels at its elementary and middle schools.
The meetings will be at the School Administration Center, 324 Beloit St., at 1 and 6 p.m. Oct. 29, 5 and 7 p.m. Nov. 19 and 6 p.m. Dec. 2.
Superintendent Robert Crist said the meetings will pick up where similar meeting left off last spring. Those meetings focused on the potential move to a “center-school” model that would rearrange the grade levels at every district school except Delavan-Darien High School.
Board member Joe Peyer opposed making the new meetings solely about revisiting that issue. He said the community did not support the “center-school” concept last spring and, although he said he likes the idea, he doesn’t think it is worth stirring stir things up again.
“We should let it sit for a while,” he said.
Board member Steve Logterman said the district spent a lot of time last year studying the issue and never came up with a final plan or the money to fund one. He said he also did not support spending several weeks getting people riled up only to decide again it cannot be done.
Board member Chad Kort said the meetings, which the district announced previously, seem to be about revisiting the center-school model.
Kort and Peyer said they believe some parents took their kids out of the district through open enrollment as a result of the center-school discussion. According to the student count taken the third week of September, the district lost 430 students to open enrollment and gained 42. The district lost 373 and gained 41 the previous year. Even so, the district has 2,421 students, two more than last year.
Board President Jeff Scherer said the district needs to continue to look for ways to push the envelope and look for better ways to use resources. Crist said change is uncomfortable for some people, but the district needs to embrace and steer change to deal with growing concerns about shrinking state and federal funding for education.
“The public needs to be involved in sharing the load with ideas,” Crist said. “The meetings are important because we need to continue to see where we and the community are at.”
Peyer said he is not opposed to discussing new ideas and supports holding the new meetings as long as they are to discuss many things, not just center schools.
Board member Jim Hansen said year-round school, an idea Kort brought up earlier in the meeting, is an example of an idea that could be discussed. He also said the center-school idea had some strong opponents but is not sure if they represented the entire community.
Crist said another idea that should be discussed is what to do with Wileman Elementary, with or without the center-school approach. He said the school is too crowded and the district could explore a new school, possibly on the site of the middle and high schools, creating a central campus for all the schools in the city.
The district has stopped using the portable classrooms outside Wileman by repurposing space in the library and sharing space between music and art. The portables have been sold to Odling Construction for $1 and will be removed soon.
The consensus of the board was to go ahead with the meetings but to make them about generating any new ideas come up rather than just revisiting the center-school model.
State report card
District Director of Instruction Cora Rund reported on statewide report cards released by the Department of Public Instruction. Rund said the district made improvements in the student growth, closing gaps, on-track and postsecondary readiness, and student engagement categories.
Rund said the district received an overall score of 68.3, “meets expectations.” Scoring entire districts is new this year, so the score cannot be compared to last year. Rund said scores for individual schools, which can be compared to last year, will be discussed at the Nov. 11 meeting.
“It was a lot of work by many people,” Rund said about the district’s improvements. “We have had some tremendous growth over 12 months.”
In particular, Rund said math scores are higher than last year. She said the district still has areas to improve in. Reading scores, for example, remained stable, and Rund said the district would continue to explore ideas about how to bump up achievement in that area.
Rund also said the district hopes to implement new common core-aligned report cards by the end of first quarter throughout the district.
Infinite Campus
The board approved switching its grading and data program from Powerschool to Infinite Campus. Crist said the new program would be easier to use, provide more uniformity in reporting data and cost the district less. Powerschool costs the district about $30,000 a year. Infinite Campus will cost $19,500.
The district will begin data transfer to Infinite Campus in January and begin using it for grading next fall.
Remodeling
The School Administration Center is undergoing some minor remodeling. Crist said some rooms are being repurposed and new walls are being added to better locate district administrators and staff. The biggest move will involve the district’s building and grounds director moving to the building from the basement of Phoenix Middle School. Others will be moving from one place to another within the building.
Parent night
A districtwide parent night has been rescheduled for Nov. 12 so teachers can demonstrate how the district’s new one-to-one technology is being used in the classroom. Elementary schools will meet from 5 to 7 p.m. The middle and high school will meet from 4 to 6 p.m.
