District 102 Proceeds with Changes to Intervention Programs

The District 102 School Board gave its informal approval Thursday night to changes to reading and math intervention programs, which will result in $250,000 in savings next year.

Superintendent Warren Shillinburg now plans to move forward with the modifications, amid parent frustration over the way the process was handled.

The reorganization will allow the district to leave vacant five positions opening this spring due to teacher retirements. The shift was part of a larger plan to cut $1 million from the district’s fiscal year 2013-14 budget.

But Shillinburg said that his motivation is to improve the student experience for Tier 2 and Tier 3 students, children who struggle with math and reading that account for roughly 9 percent of the district’s population.

“We do not feel this is really being pushed by the budget because we feel it’s what’s best for students,” he said after the meeting.

Tier 3 students will get an additional 30 minutes of core reading instruction each day through the MindPlay computer program, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Lori Gehrke said.

Tier 2 students currently spend 30 minutes a day working with a math interventionist. Under the new scenario, they would be integrated into the general education classroom for math, she said. Tier 3 students will receive math instruction from a special education teacher.

Board members Matthew Scotty and Jennifer Comparoni each said that they were comfortable with the changes but felt the community should have been involved earlier in the process.

“I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation of how the program is today and how it’s changing,” Comparoni said. “I want us to learn from that. … We need to think about how we make ourselves accessible to the parents who still have questions.”

Teachers union President Kathleen Valenta, as well as several parents, shared concerns about the limited role they were allowed to play in the decision.

“You need to get all the stakeholders involved,” Valenta said.

Parents also said they are worried about the use of the MindPlay program as an intervention tool.

“The notion of a computer program doing 30 minutes of supplemental reading instruction is really troubling to me,” Catherine Keating said. “Indeed, my concerns are of the highest level you can imagine.”

Shillinburg said after the meeting that the software won’t replace teacher lessons. It will be administered on top of the level of instruction students get now.

Although some parents expressed disapproval that the changes weren’t put to a board vote, he said formal approval wasn’t necessary.

“We’re not looking to spend, we’re looking to save,” he said. “We don’t have to vote when we want to save money.”

Next year when the changes are implemented, students will be evaluated every six weeks and could potentially move between tiers at that point, Shillinburg said. The district will also use several metrics, including MAP testing, to determine the new structure’s effectiveness.