advertisement

Warrenville, Wheaton schools required to offer tutors

Two Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 elementary schools, already required to offer parents a choice to attend different district schools because of poor test scores, now must also offer tutoring to their low-income students.

The “supplemental educational services” are required to be offered because Hawthorne Elementary in Wheaton has failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the No Child Left Behind Act for four consecutive years in a row. Warrenville's Johnson Elementary made AYP in 2012 but did not make AYP three out of last four years, including 2013.

Districts are required to offer choice when a Title I school fails to make AYP on student standardized test scores more than two years in a row. The state requires that a school make AYP two consecutive years to be out of School Improvement Status.

Title I schools receive federal dollars when more than half of their population are considered low income.

“Through the No Child Left Behind legislation, for some of our schools that have already offered choice, the next rung of consequences for No child Left Behind is the offering of supplemental Educational services,” Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Faith Dahlquist told board members Wednesday night.

Letters will be sent home in the coming days to parents in those schools and the services are expected to begin in late October or early November.

Because both schools receive the Title I federal dollars, the services are available only to students who receive a free or reduced lunch. Dahlquist said she does not expect demand for the tutoring will require a second tier of requirements based on need.

“It will depend on how many students we have that are interested but because we only have two schools, and we allocate 20 percent of our Title 1 funds for this, I do not foresee we will be turning away students for these services,” she said.

Three District 200 schools to offer choice

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.