July 20, 2004

R-2 summer school goes under review

It's been a few weeks since the final bell rang which signaled the end of summer school for 880 students enrolled. Since then, R-2 officials have tallied the total hours of enrollment and attendance rates and Dale Wallace, R-2 superintendent, has conservatively estimated just how much the program will provide the district in the way of state funding.

Pam Brobst, summer school coordinator, will present a summary of the program during tonight's (Tuesday night's) board meeting at district headquarters which is slated to begin at 6:30 p.m.

According to Wallace, the district will net around $300,000 in state aid after paying Newton Learning, the company contracted by the district for the program.

Brobst said that the district's first year of contracting with Newton Learning for summer school was a learning experience, for the administrators as well as for the teachers.

"There were kinks that we had to work out as we do with any new program," she explained.

Summer school was held at two sites: Central School for children in grades kindergarten through third, and at the high school for students in grades four through nine.

The average enrollment in grades kindergarten through nine in the Newton program was 694. A total of 186 students took classes in grades nine through twelve in the district's program.

"Our attendance hours and EPA (eligible pupil count) generated increased significantly because of the increased hours summer school was in session and because of the incentives offered to students," Brobst said.

For the first time in the R-2 district, students in summer school attended classes from 8 a.m. to 3:15 p.m., drastically increasing the number of hours spent in the classroom.

Students who earned perfect attendance and were well behaved also reaped the benefits in the way of daily drawings. The additional incentive of VISA gift cards for perfect or near perfect attendance also helped keep the students coming back to class. . . . .