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Glen Ellyn District 41 to hold off on multiage expansion

Glen Ellyn Elementary District 41 is hitting the pause button on expanding its multiage instructional program for the next two years.

Superintendent Paul Gordon said the district will not be expanding the initiative because it wants to further monitor the existing program, in which students are grouped by learning needs rather than just age.

“We have some early success through anecdotal information and achievement data, but I really just want to watch it and monitor it for the next two years to ensure that everything that we're doing is working as well as the initial data is reporting that it is,” Gordon said Wednesday.

District 41 is in its second year of multiage instruction. The program has so far been implemented only in literacy classes for Level 3, in which fourth and fifth graders learn together.

Delaying expansion of the program will also give more time to Level 2 teachers, who have expressed some concerns about the program. “It's clear that they they're not quite ready,” he said.

Some teachers don't believe 2nd graders should be learning alongside 3rd graders, Gordon said, and others feel they need more time to wrestle with the standards for both sets of students.

“They have some concerns about the younger children in a multiage environment so we want to make sure that they're feeling comfortable, that they're ready for it,” Gordon said. “I respect our teachers, and I respect their feedback and that's why we're having this pause.”

But the initial program appears to be going well, he said.

“As we continue to go out and speak with our teachers, our principals about Level 3 multiage, we're hearing a lot of success stories,” he said, “we're hearing a lot of good things.”

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