Officials at three PK-5 schools in Wheaton Warrenville Community Unit School District 200 have been forced to offer parents the choice, mandated by the No Child Left Behind law enacted more than a decade ago, of pulling their kids out of schools that didn’t meet federal student performance guidelines and transferring them to another school in the district, the Daily Herald reports.
The three schools are Hawthorne and Washington Elementary schools, both in Wheaton, and Bower Elementary School in Warrenville.
The bar was set at 92.5 percent in 2013, meaning in order for a school to “make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP),” at least 92.5 percent of students had to meet or exceed the state’s grade-level standards in reading and math. Now, only grades 3, 4, and 5 were tested at these three schools, and students overall may have exceeded the 92.5 percent threshold. However, certain subgroups of students may not have scored high enough on the ISATs to get the school off the academic watch list.
But even though parents have the choice of sending their kids to another school, that’s not likely to happen in too many cases, district officials told the Daily Herald. Faith Dahlquist, assistant superintendent of educational services, said this is the third consecutive year Johnson parents were given a choice, second consecutive year for Hawthorne, and the first year for Washington. “I do not think there will be as many students (moving from) Johnson because I’ve given this presentation and explaining this to parents for the third year in a row,” she told board members. “I anticipate, if I were to ballpark it, having less than 10 move from Johnson to Bower. The first year we had 20. Last year we had about 13, but it’s not a huge amount.”
Superintendent Brian Harris expressed concern about the anxiety this situation causes families. “The whole punish situation that is set up through that legislation is completely inappropriate. It really creates a lot of anxiety for families, for friends, and for staff. … We believe all of our schools are doing an excellent job on a daily basis. We have the same curriculum, we have the same materials, and we will continue to do that.”
