Moving Around!!!
By Victoria
Have you ever wondered about switching schools, or what it would feel like to have to go to a different school than the one you were used to? Well, if you went to the Indiana Area School District (IASD) elementary schools in the year of 2014-2015, you would know how it feels.
Last year, 50% of the students were moved and 50% stayed at the same school. All of the Pre K, Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade students were moved either to East Pike or Ben Franklin, and all of the 4th and 5th graders were moved to either Horace Mann or Eisenhower.
They call all the moving around from school to school a district realignment. The realignment in Indiana, PA happened in an effort to save money and because most of the class sizes were greater than they should have been.
Mr. Dale Kirsch, superintendent of IASD, shared the following about the reason for the realignment, “The primary reason for realignment of the elementary schools was financial. We were not able to maintain class size guidelines or provide the level of academic support to students that we desired.”
In response to the question, “Are you getting the results you had expected?” Mr. Kirsch replied, “I am most pleased that our class size guidelines are being met, the Math and Literacy coaches were added and the reduced travel for Reading Specialists and Learning Support teachers. ”
Not all students had to switch schools. In some families, younger siblings had to move while their older brothers and sisters did not. According to one student, “I wasn’t so crazy about the idea of going to a different school, but after a while I realised that I liked change.”
Mr. Kirsch reported that the savings were not as much as they had expected because they had to add another bus which added about $20,000 to the annual budget. They also had to hire another 4th grade teacher due to enrollment, but the teacher was only needed for one year.
Is Mr. Kirsch satisfied with the realignment? His response: “I preferred two schools with grades K to 2 and two schools with grades 3 to 5 instead of K-3 and 4-5, but we could not do that with the rooms available in the existing schools.” Hopefully, the moving around is over for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment