School District U-46 today posted online the salary and benefit information for all of its administrators and teachers. 

Effective October 1, state law (Public Act 096-0434) requires every Illinois school district to post on its website the salary and benefit information for every employee who holds an “administrative certificate and working in that capacity.”  In other words, school districts must report out the salaries and benefits for superintendents, school principals, and other administrative staff that require a state certificate to work.

Governor Pat Quinn also signed legislation this year (Public Act 096-0266) that requires school districts to report salary and benefit information regarding all administrators and teachers to the State Board of Education.

 “In reviewing these two pieces of legislation, we have decided that we should be transparent with taxpayers and give them all of the information that is compiled, not just the salaries and benefits of administrators,” said Dr. José M. Torres, superintendent for U-46.  “Simply put, it’s the right thing to do.”

 In addition to base salary, the reports provide other forms of compensation and reimbursement, such as pension benefits, retirement increases, and health and life insurance benefit costs.

ELGIN — Still swimming in a $43 million budget deficit from the last year, the Elgin School District U46 Board of Education this week approved a $434 million spending plan for fiscal 2010.

That budget is about $13 million less than last fiscal year’s. Through several means — including layoffs, reorganization of classrooms, and the elimination of long-term substitutes who cost the district nearly $2 million last year — the district was able to tighten its financial belt.

Almost $323 million will be spent on staff salaries and benefits, about $4 million less than last year. Here’s a breakdown of some major components of the overall spending plan:

• Almost half — slightly more than $152 million — will be spent on teachers’ salaries.

• About $20 million will go toward administrative salaries.

• Approximately $4 million will be spent on custodians’ pay.

• About $9.7 million will be spent on bus drivers’ salaries.

• About $4.3 million will be used to pay daily substitute teachers’ salaries.

• Employee benefits — which include retirement, health and life insurance — are expected to increase by about $2.4 million in 2009-10 to $85.4 million, despite the reduction in staff.

• About $28 million will be spent on supplies, including classroom computers, lab materials and paper.

• About $6.5 million will be spent on capital projects, about $14 million less than last year. That means there will be a delay in some capital projects, according to district officials.

Even though some of the long-awaited funds from last fiscal year — including $17.6 million in payments and about $13 million in revenue — trickled in after closing the books for the fiscal year that ended June 30, revenue problems still haunt the district.

Among them are a state funding lag; a significant decline in the amount of interest earned on investments; bankruptcies rising by 46 percent since 2007 in the Chicago collar counties, including the portions of Cook, DuPage and Kane counties that U46 serves; and an alarming growth of home foreclosures in Kane County.

The foreclosures and bankruptcies affect payment of property taxes, which are the district’s main source of funding. Currently, property tax IOUs from the various counties total more than $11 million.

As more dollars from last fiscal year arrive, the budget will be amended to take into account those changes, district officials said.

To follow state law, the district is posting the salaries and benefits of all certified administrators in U46. In an effort to be “fully transparent,” the district also is sharing the salaries of all certified administrators, all non-certified administrators, and all teachers.

© Copyright 2009 Digital Chicago, Inc.

ELGIN — Academically gifted fifth- and sixth-graders at Creekside Elementary School in Elgin were recently in tears when they found out that they might be separated from longtime classmates.

“We came up with a little chant, ‘You made us cry, please tell us why,’ ” Hadley said.

The reason: The sixth-grade gifted School Within a School (SWAS) class had 21 students, and the fifth-grade SWAS class had 30 students. The latter is two over Elgin School District U46’s new rule of limiting class sizes to 28 students with one teacher for fourth through sixth grades.

Since the sixth-grade class was significantly under the limit, the district’s original solution was to split the fifth- and sixth-grades, creating multi-age classrooms of under 29 students each. Adding a teaching aide, which is supposed to happen after the classroom size reaches and/or exceeds 30 students, was out of the question because of to the district’s budget constraints, according to district officials.

However, parents and students didn’t swallow the first option well, saying it could have been a repeat of fifth grade for much of the class.

“Most of the (sixth-grade) kids read at ninth- and 10th-grade level, and they’re doing seventh-grade math,” said Mike Copeland, Hadley’s dad. “I’m just concerned. How is a teacher, who taught them in fifth-grade, not going to reteach them what’s been taught already? It’s going to be a repetitive curriculum. What’s the point of a gifted program?”

Dori Poulos, another Creekside parent, agreed. She said the district was asking a lot from not only students but also teachers, who would have had to plan a brand new curriculum a month into the school year.

“Teachers have to figure out on the fly how to teach a multi-age group,” Poulos said. “They should just leave things the way they are” with 30 students to one teacher in the fifth-grade.

That’s just what the district decided to do after a meeting Wednesday night with Creekside parents who were protesting the multi-age classroom proposal.

Creekside fifth-grade teacher Vickie Garwood says she “waived” her rights to an aide.

“It would have been unconscionable, at this late date, to tear away at the heartstrings of 51 fifth- and sixth-graders,” Garwood said. “When no TA (teaching assistant) was forthcoming, you have to do what is in the best interest of the kids.”

District officials said they’re “appreciative” of her decision.

Even though Creekside parents also have been behind Garwood’s actions, it means she cannot receive an aide throughout the entire school year even if more gifted students are admitted into her classroom.

However, district officials said that probably won’t happen.

“Since the initial testing window for new students has ended, it is unlikely that additional students will be placed in the Creekside fifth-grade class,” said Nan Ochs, the district’s gifted education coordinator.

Ochs emphasized that education would not be compromised.

“These collaborative efforts have assured that all identified students will be able to participate in a program designed to meet the social, academic and emotional needs of gifted students,” she said.

Garwood is not alone in waiving her rights to an aide.

At Wayne Elementary School, several teachers also waived their rights to teaching assistants. As a result, the school, which does not have a gifted program, does not have any multi-age classrooms. Instead, it has three sixth-grade classrooms of 31 students.

District officials said last year that their goal was to even out class sizes at the elementary level this year to save nearly $900,000.

What this has turned out to mean is that the district is only assigning aides if consecutive grades in a school are too large and they can not be turned into multi-age classrooms. For example, if a fifth-grade class had 30 kids and a sixth-grade class had 31, combining the grades wouldn’t lower each class size to less than 30. In this hypothetical case, each class would be given an aide.

Yet, in most cases, the district is flipping large classrooms into multi-age classrooms. There are 111 multi-age classrooms in U46 this year, 83 more than last year.

Just 22 more.

Students, that is.

According to preliminary enrollment counts released this week, 22 more students are attending Elgin Area School District U-46 schools this year. The total student count is now at 41,169.

The increase is the sum of ebbs and flows at various academic levels.

While the early childhood program lost 70 students this year, U-46’s elementary schools gained 154 students overall.

Middle schools lost 186 students, evenly balanced by high schools’ gain of 189 students.

Sixty-five less students are taking part in the districts alternative high school program and adult education program.

A number of people, including myself, are curious about how the district’s initiative to lower class sizes in elementary schools is really panning out.

A few weeks more, district officials say. Official enrollment counts, as well as individual schools’ classroom sizes, will be available in early October.

St. Eds’ scores stay stable: The 93 students who took the ACT last year earned an average score of 23, according to St. Edward Catholic High School principal and superintendent the Rev. David Peck. Right around where it was last year.

This year, the top 10 percent of those 3 students all scored about 30. Five percent of students scored 20 or below.

The school was 2 points above the state average in individual subject areas – English, math, science and reading.

Elgin Area School District U-46’s median ACT score this year was 19.6.

The ACT is scored on a 36-point scale.

Copyright © 2009 Daily Herald Inc.

ELGIN — With several of its schools bursting at the seams, the School District U46 board this week approved guidelines for changing attendance boundaries for the 2010-11 school year.

Ten elementary schools and one middle school have from 1 percent to 30 percent more students than classroom space to accommodate them, according to a report conducted by outside consultants.

That report, compiled over the last year, notes that while the district has several schools above their designed student capacity, U46 also has “plenty of seats at elementary and middle schools; they’re just not in the right areas,” district spokesman Tony Sanders said.

To begin the process of changing attendance boundaries, the district drafted guidelines for the Citizens Advisory Council, a volunteer panel that advises the school board and administration on school issues.

The guidelines include looking at schools’ capacities, excluding mobile classrooms; feeder school alignment; distance and travel time of students to school; natural boundaries such as wetlands and railroad tracks; opportunity for siblings to attend the same school; over- and under-utilization of schools; projected growth in the area and future school facilities; proximity of schools to where students live; and current and projected enrollment broken down by student groups identified in the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The last time U46 — the state’s second-largest school district, with more than 41,00 students — made boundary changes was in 2004. That’s when it adjusted elementary and middle school attendance zones so pupils would attend the schools closest to their homes. In response, some Elgin parents filed a discrimination lawsuit against U46 — which is still pending — claiming it discriminated against minorities because of their race and that too few students were being identified and served by English language-learning programs.

The district so far has spent $8.4 million defending itself from the lawsuit, according to U46 budget figures.

However, Sanders said the “establishment of guidelines was not directly tied to the lawsuit.”

Instead, he said, the guidelines “establish the expectations of the board of education regarding the criteria that should be used to evaluate any boundary changes.”

In any case, Sanders said, the district likely is going to make these boundary changes to avoid an estimated $35 million cost if U46 were to construct all the needed additions to retain current boundaries.

© Copyright 2009 Digital Chicago, Inc.

ELGIN — Ronald Ally is taking over the reins as the new chief financial officer for Elgin School District U46.

He will replace John Prince, who left the district July 1. Ally begins next week.

After an extensive review process, U46 Superintendent Jose M. Torres said the district agreed that Ally “clearly has the knowledge and experience” for the job.

Since 2000, Ally has served as the vice president for administrative services and treasurer for McHenry County College in Crystal Lake. While at MCC, he increased the general fund reserves, coordinated restructuring of long-term debt, led the insurance advisory committee, prepared the college’s first comprehensive annual financial report, and has served on several negotiating teams.

Prior to that position, Ally worked for the College of DuPage as the director of financial affairs, where he was responsible for accounting, payroll, accounts payable and receivable, and maintained all ledgers and records.

Ally has several professional affiliations, including the Illinois Community College Board Finance Advisory Committee, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Illinois CPA Society, National Association of College and University Business Officials, Association of School Business Officials International and Illinois Association of School Business Officials.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Elmhurst College and a master’s degree in education with a major in school business management, an educational specialist degree with a major in educational administration and a doctorate in educational administration from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

Two weeks after the results of a capital planning and facilities study found several schools packed to the brim and in need of quick relief, Elgin Area School District U-46 released a proposed set of attendance boundary guidelines for its Citizens Advisory Council.

According to the proposal, the Council’s Enrollment and Facilities Committee, charged with making boundary change recommendations to the school board, will be looking at the following criteria:

• Distance and travel time of students to and from school.

• Alignment of elementary schools to middle schools, and middle schools to high schools.

• Projected growth in the area.

• The proximity of schools to where students live

• Over- and underutilization of schools.

• Natural boundaries including wetlands, railroad tracks, forest preserves and main thoroughfares.

The study, the first for U-46 since 1998, was conducted between September 2008 and June by Chicago-based architecture and engineering firm Wight and Co., and Texas-based facility assessment firm Magellan Consulting Inc.

Hillcrest Elementary in Elgin was found to be the most overcrowded campus, at 130 percent capacity this past school year with 656 students.

Lincoln Elementary in Hoffman Estates; Coleman, Highland, Fox Meadow, Lords Park and Lowrie Elementary in Elgin; Nature Ridge Elementary in Bartlett; Oakhill Elementary in Streamwood; Laurel Hill Elementary in Hanover Park; and Kenyon Woods Middle School in South Elgin; Larkin High School in Elgin and Streamwood High School were also among some of the most overcrowded.

The district will be looking for relief at those schools first, and then begin work on a long-term, districtwide strategy, Superintendent Jose Torres has said.

The board will consider approving the guidelines Aug. 17.

Copyright © 2009 Daily Herald Inc.