Story posted Friday, June 12, 2009
District 57 Switches From Firing To Hiring
By RICHARD MAYER Assistant Managing Editor
Mt. Prospect Elementary School Dist. 57 board members recently decided to spend $44,000 on three additional full-time equivalent (FTE) teacher hirings instead of originally planning to save $36,000 by eliminating one full-time staff member next year.
The district will also house an additional section of its Early Childhood- Development Enrichment Center (EC-DEC) for the 2009-10 school year.
These changes came about after new student enrollment numbers surfaced in recent months.
Staffing will consist of two-and-a-half FTE certified staff at Westbrook School and 0.5 FTE non-certified staff next year.
The current number of students enrolled in kindergarten at Westbrook stands at 203. This is an increase of more than 35 students since this past February and indicates the district will have a larger kindergarten group next year compared to this year. Administrators are confident that a number of 210-215 students is reasonable to expect at the beginning of next year.
As result of increased enrollment projections, Dist. 57 decided to raise the number of kindergarten sections from nine to 10 at Westbrook.
Class sizes at Westbrook should be in the 20-21 range next school year.
The gain in kindergarten numbers indicates the current part-time Literacy Support position will be inadequate, of ficials say, to serve the greater number of sections and slightly larger classes than this year’s group. Therefore, the part-time position will be increased to full-time.
According to Supt. Dr. Bruce Brown, students will benefit from the addition of another kindergarten section. He said the additional Literacy Support position provides the level of literacy support required for young learners.
The district’s three and four-year-old students will benefit from having another section of EC available, preventing any overcrowding of that program, Brown said.
Next year, two additional classroom spaces will be utilized at Westbrook, but will be designated for next year only. Those spaces may be returned to their current vacancy state the following year, according to Brown.
The additional kindergarten section will use a room provided for the current ninth section of kindergarten and will fully utilize that space morning and afternoon.
The first additional use of space is for the "Circle of Friends" section, which will use a vacant sixth kindergarten classroom next year.
The second new use of Westbrook space is for EC-DEC, which will use a currently vacant classroom for its purposes.
Back in February, board members approved eliminating one non-certified staff member as well as a part-time K-5 Special Area instructor. However, a part-time Special Services teacher was going to be added.
Board members and staff claim they will continue to monitor all grade levels to ascertain any other possible staffing needs. However, it is anticipated that the district’s traditional enrollment pattern will result in a few additional changes to its human resource needs.
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