Did anyone else read the Scool paper that came out yesterday and read the puff piece regarding the continued space crunch and enrollment in the District?

I was under the impression that this was going to be an investigative and informative paper that didn't shill to the districts point of view.

Enrollment is way down. Churchill is under 550 students with the most portables. How can they still be touting over 600 kids still in portables across the district?

This is achingly frustrating!

Schoolweek is a new publication which paints itself as a much larger organization than it really is. Their web site is www.schoolweek.us. I expected to see a nation-wide chain of School Week publications, perhaps with some information about the Glen Ellyn branch. I immediately realized that this is a Glen Ellyn only effort that is being produced by two people.

Pete Reinwald and Diane Rado are the two publication editors. If you look carefully, they are actually married with three children, one of whom is currently enrolled at Hadley. Diane is an ex-Chicago Tribune reporter who "covered statewide education policy and finances and specializing in analysis of test scores and school budgets across the state" according to their web site. Neither was born in Glen Ellyn or attended our schools.

Here are some observations that I have made which are not related to the above facts:

1. The perspective of the schoolweek newspaper does not seem to me to be objective by a long shot. Placing Ann Riebock in a front page article entitled " Wanted: More Space - 622 Kids Spill Out of D41 Schools and Into Portables; Board Seeks Solutions" projects an impression of horrific over-crowding in our schools. The article does not even mention that new evidence strongly suggests that a strong decline in our enrollment is in progress. Or that the preschool programs shoved into D41 schools forced a good deal of the student movement into portables.

2. I'm frightened by the fact that this "newspaper" is generating all points of view regarding Glen Ellyn schools from one married couple. It would be VERY interesting to dig up old Chicago Tribune articles written by Ms. Rado that related information about D41 and other Glen Ellyn schools.

3. Although schoolweek proports to cover Glen Ellyn School Districts D41, D87, D89, and all private schools as well, there is a disproportunate amount of District 41 information. If you page through the actual news sections of the publication, nearly 80 percent of space is dedicated to D41. Also, every single article that I carefully read seemd to be weighted HEAVILY toward the D41 Board's point of view.

4. This new unchallenged pulpit for D41 (in my opinion) is attempting to project an image of a large, unbiased media outlet providing fair coverage about the alleged overcrowding issues in Glen Ellyn schools. Here's another example of it's perspective, an article is entitled: "FYI: Besides Portables, D41 Has Some BIG Schools". The article relays that we have "extraordinarily large schools" and that Hadley was the 16th largest middle school in the state. The article further states; "Though Glen Ellyn residents rejected the idea of putting 5th graders at Hadley, it is not unheard of elseware. Of 622 middle schools in Illinois last year, 92 had 5th graders, about 15 percent".

This is unbiased and fair coverage? The tone of the article strongly implies that we're abnormal for not wanting our 5th graders at Hadley and does not even explain that Hadley would be much, much bigger if we had super-sized it and added our 5th graders!

Vu2

Items 5 and 6 deleted for potentially liabelous content. --Ted E.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ted E.,

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Herbold:

Enrollment is way down. Churchill is under 550 students with the most portables. How can they still be touting over 600 kids still in portables across the district?

The 6th Day enrollment is included in the Packet for the next Board meeting. You'll find that we have approximately 620 kids in "regular" classrooms in portables this year. Churchill went from 5 sections in portables to 8. That would account for the increase this year. The other schools stayed the same in the number of sections housed in portables.

So if I am reading this correctly - there are about 50 less students at Churchill from June 2007 to the start of school this Fall. Yet there was a need to fill three more portable classrooms? Hmmm. Maybe an explanation for the space re-assignment is in order.

quote:

Originally posted by GEmom2:
So if I am reading this correctly - there are about 50 less students at Churchill from June 2007 to the start of school this Fall. Yet there was a need to fill three more portable classrooms? Hmmm. Maybe an explanation for the space re-assignment is in order.

The impression I got from my tour of Churchill last Spring as a candidate for the Board is that decisions about what sections to place where is a decision made primarily by the local school administrations. I'd suggest calling the individual school administration or the District office for an explanation of exactly how the assignments are made and why. It's not something that the Board routinely looks at or votes on.

I personally haven't viewed the # of kids in portables as definitive proof of overcrowding so I guess I'm neither dismayed nor heartened by changes in that number up or down.

If you have the portables, they have to use them or lose them. If they can't use the argument that all these children are housed in portables, they have no enrollment crises.

Enrollment losses from June 2007 untill now also reflect additional 25 children in At Risk Pre-k. Lose more enrollment, fill it up with younger kids at the district taxpayer expense.

Vu2 - These were the impressions that I got as well. No way a paper objectively reports about school enrollment and space and puts that picture and heading up front. Why was there no analysis or mention of the loss of actual enrollment?
Kudos to Ben Franklin Principal for mockingly quoting the need for band and orchestra to actually practice on the stage .

Bob, thanks again for the monitoring of the situation and reporting back here. Walking a fine tightrope, and you are doing it exceptionally.

Packet

Under discussion items, on page 11 of the packet, the Board noted that the results of the demographic analysis are consistent with pre-election canvasing that indicated D41 parents did not support the referendum enough to support it.
I wonder why the results of the pre-election canvas were not made public... maybe I just missed it

[/QUOTE]The 6th Day enrollment is included in the Packet for the next Board meeting. You'll find that we have approximately 620 kids in "regular" classrooms in portables this year. Churchill went from 5 sections in portables to 8. That would account for the increase this year. The other schools stayed the same in the number of sections housed in portables.[/QUOTE]



Churchill has a gain of 4 class rooms this year. They have one less section of 1st grade and have sent 3 more sections out to the portables. I have never been on the "Artificial Overcrowding Bandwagon", but I can see why so many are.

Is it really necessary to have only 15-16 children in a kindergarten class at Lincoln when you have such space concerns?

Ben Franklin's principle announced yesterday that they have 80 pre-k kids now at their school. That makes up over 10% of the entire enrollment.

S O S

Ted E.

I respectfully disagree with your edits of my previous post here removing my 5th and 6th bullets. However, this is your board, and I do want to remain a guest here and will therefore try to follow your rules carefully. Please accept my apologies for violating your guidelines for this board - it was not intentional.

Vu2

Liable...libel...whatever.

Grateful, you may want to take a look at the enrollment report sited in this thread. BF appears to have only 46 PreK kids.

What is astounding to me, is that the K-8 enrollment is under 3,500. It is really going to be very difficult to try to re-package and sell the referendum. At the last board meeting, the former board president talked about how the board needs to agree that we have an overcrowding issue. The enrollment numbers are going the wrong way. However, if the district keeps shrinking the class sizes to less than 15, perhaps they can make it appear that there is a problem. A former board member once touted class sizes of 15 and less. It was bound to happen. The only crisis here is that the numbers are down and it makes it hard to make a case.

quote:

Originally posted by Clamato:
Liable...libel...whatever.

Vu2 is liable to say anything libelous. Or slanderous. But then, truth is an affirmative defense to the garbage I just read in that Schoolpropagandaweek newspaper.

Talk about being co-opted. If I were to stand on school grounds and take pictures of students and others, along with pictures of buildings, there would be hell to pay. This tabloid gets a pass. All you have to do is put the "Sun-Times style" front page out there with the cooperation of the district. I was surprised that this tabloid didn't just put kids in chains and pose them at the portables, lining up with their "Oliver Twist" bowls for food.

Now, let's get down to the numbers. 90% of seniors and over 70% of Hadley parents voted no. According to the crack demographic analysis printed by the tabloid, the seniors voted no because "they have more time to get involved in opposition groups and get to the polls." Forget the fact that these seniors in Glen Ellyn raised their children here and have a history in this town for reference. Something this Cleveland editor tips her hat to by saying schools were closed and sold off in the past.

If it's the seniors' fault, you can make the logical leap to "All you lazy butts who are not retired are at fault for this referendum failing." The fact (yes, fact) is that school population in District 41 is not increasing. But with this softball piece of panic peddling, that fact gets lost.

I went to Catholic school too. 16 years. My parents complained about every referendum. They were short sighted. But the voters in Glen Ellyn did not make this referendum fail. The District, with their lack of credibility, and bad ideas, is at fault. Imagine, if you will, a referendum for $41 Million to build a school which had no basis in facility study, engineering, or planning.

That's the fact.

Amen, Ron.

I am also glad to see someone else has noted the "quality" of this so called paper. I found the points of view to be slanted towards the districts desires.

Last week's "edition" was a roast of 89 and their desire for air conditioning in all school classrooms. They reported on many districts and the number of classrooms with or without AC, however they also included schools that they had no statistics on, sort of like making a list and then never completing it.

I refer to this paper as the School Propaganda Brigade.

quote:

Originally posted by What'snext:


Is it really necessary to have only 15-16 children in a kindergarten class at Lincoln when you have such space concerns?

That is an interesting question, especially compared to, say, Churchill's class size. I'll have to inquire about that.

I heard (as a parent, not a Board Member) that some folks who requested AM were called to see if they'd be willing to switch to PM to help balance things, so maybe there was some difficulty posed by that issue. Also, on my tour of the schools as a candidate I noticed that Lincoln's Kinder classrooms felt quite a bit smaller than the other three elem. schools. But I have no square footage data to back that feeling up. It'll be nice to have that type of data in the Utilization Study that's going out to bid soon.

Bob Solak said:
"It'll be nice to have that type of data in the Utilization Study that's going out to bid soon."

I trust that, with an engineering background, you don't shy away from data that is important to the equation. What I find baffling is how none of this Utilization study was done prior to the referendum. I know homework is not graded, but it still counts!

The "assembly" room at Lincoln the tabloid talks about is the "Telemation room." I remember running Chess Club at Lincoln. The Telemation room is an open space, like the town square of classrooms, on the west side of the building. After school, Scout groups are just one of the groups to use it. PTA has used it. The gyms are being utilized by Park District activities. To say that it is now used for teaching space because Lincoln is crowded is to not know the history of the space.

Grateful, I did find something interesting in the enrollment report with respect to the PreK program. There does not seem to be a line for reporting those figures at Churchill. So it would appear that the program in total is moving to Franklin. Maybe someone can enlighten us on that. What is very interesting to note is that, Churchill's numbers are down from June. While Franklin's total K-5 figures are more than Churchill. Now according to the "canvass" of votes done prior to the election, Franklin parents did not support the ref. Perhaps the increased enrollment at your school is meant to make true believers out of all of you.

South of Teddy, what I find extremely interesting about talk of A/C in schools, is that seems to be a big selling point for a bond referendum in D89 (correct me if I'm wrong). Inquiring minds might want to know how District 41 managed to air condition every learning space in their schools without a referendum. The answer is quite simply the 2001 phased-in referendum, the one that keeps on giving (or taking).

quote:

Originally posted by Bob Solak:

quote:

Originally posted by What'snext:


Is it really necessary to have only 15-16 children in a kindergarten class at Lincoln when you have such space concerns?

That is an interesting question, especially compared to, say, Churchill's class size. I'll have to inquire about that.

I heard (as a parent, not a Board Member) that some folks who requested AM were called to see if they'd be willing to switch to PM to help balance things, so maybe there was some difficulty posed by that issue. Also, on my tour of the schools as a candidate I noticed that Lincoln's Kinder classrooms felt quite a bit smaller than the other three elem. schools. But I have no square footage data to back that feeling up. It'll be nice to have that type of data in the Utilization Study that's going out to bid soon.

Bob, if Lincoln had gone with 4 sessions of Kindergarten this year, class sizes would have been roughly 20 kids per class. I know you want to wait for the Space Study to confirm your feelings on square footage, but Lincoln has had many classes in Kindergarten with 25 kids per class in the past (including 2 of my kids). How can you say that the classrooms are possibly not large enough to handle more kids than 15-16? I'm pretty sure when Lincoln recieved the National Blue Ribbon Award, Kindergarten class sizes were not at 15-16.