Articles filed under Dundee Area Unit District 300

• District 300 first to offer fourth-year math course May 14, 2013 12:00 AM
  Seniors at Jacobs, Hampshire and Dundee-Crown high schools will have the opportunity to take a new math class next year with a textbook designed especially for them. The course was developed by the Alliance for College Readiness which includes Elgin Community College and all of its feeder high school districts — Elgin Area School District U-46, St. Charles Community Unit District 303, Burlington-based Central Unit District 301, and Carpentersville-based Community Unit District 300, the only district to offer the course next year.
  

   
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  Hampshire HS senior hopes to make a career out of film May 13, 2013 12:00 AM
  When Danny Heck was in eighth grade, he and his friends made an Indiana Jones movie with a camcorder. He had such a good time it prompted some research into the film industry and how one could go about breaking into it. Heck, now a senior at Hampshire High School, has worked with Nicole Thompson, the high school librarian, and the District 300 Foundation over the last year on videos for school and district events. "That's when I really knew that this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life," Heck said.
  

   

• Dist. 300 considers second online charter school plan May 13, 2013 12:00 AM
  Community Unit District 300 board members have moved from one charter school proposal to another, holding a public hearing for the Illinois Online Charter School. The charter would be for Northern Kane Educational Corp., which already runs the Cambridge Lakes Charter School in Pingree Grove and serves District 300 students, but also extend to others in the state.
  

   

• Educators gather for Common Core training Apr 30, 2013 12:00 AM
  Organizations have kicked into high gear with workshops and training to help smooth school districts' transition to Common Core State Standards. One was held in Arlington Heights Tuesday for more than 400 educators from across the region.
  

   
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  Dist. 300 to fight transportation funding cuts Apr 29, 2013 12:00 AM
  Members of the Community Unit District 300 legislative committee met with eight out of their nine state senators and representatives in April, most of them last week. The committee held a special meeting Monday night to debrief after those conversations and consider their next steps, especially in regards to proposed transportation funding cuts. Senator Dan Duffy is the lone senator whose district boundaries cross D300 who did not meet with committee members.
  

   

• Celebrate Kane County educators at annual awards banquet Apr 29, 2013 12:00 AM
  The 38th annual Educator of the Year Awards Banquet will be Friday, May 3, at the Q Center, 1405 N. Fifth Ave. in St. Charles. This awards dinner provides an opportunity to honor outstanding members of the education profession in Kane County and promote the awareness of the quality education being provided in our schools. Special recognition is also given to those retiring from education this school year.
  

   

• Dist. 300 announces nominees for awards Apr 22, 2013 12:00 AM
  Page 2 The District 300 Foundation for Educational Excellence recently announced this year's nominees for the Distinguished Educator and Distinguished School Employee awards. This is the inaugural year for the D300 Distinguished School Employee of the Year award program.
  

   

• District 300 to lobby against transportation funding cutsApr 16, 2013 12:00 AM
  Community Unit District 300 is readying to rally the troops for more organizing in Springfield. The Carpentersville-based district is set to see its transportation funding drop from $1.8 million to $60,000 if a proposed state budget is approved by lawmakers in coming months. And the $1.8 million figure is still millions less than it got a few years ago.
  

   
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  School pay raises trigger Illinois penalties Apr 15, 2013 12:00 AM
  Seven years after Illinois lawmakers passed a law intended to curtail big pension-boosting pay hikes for retiring educators, some local school districts still are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in penalties to the state for giving such raises. Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54 paid nearly half a million dollars in penalties to the state in the 2011-2012 school year.
  

   
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  House moves plan to block online charter schools Apr 10, 2013 12:00 AM
  The Illinois House has started moving to put a three-year moratorium on Internet charter schools just days after a handful of suburban school districts rejected online proposals. Today, state Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia, an Aurora Democrat, convinced a committee to stop the creation of any new online charter schools until April 2016 so that lawmakers can learn more about how they would work.
  

   
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  Districts U-46, 300 deny virtual charter school proposal Apr 8, 2013 12:00 AM
  The school boards in Elgin Area School District U-46 and Community Unit District 300 unanimously denied a charter proposal during their meetings Monday night that would have allowed a virtual charter school to open in the coming school year. The Virtual Charter School at Fox River Valley was proposed by Virtual Learning Solutions, a nonprofit group formed specifically to open a school for students across 18 school districts in the region, allowing them to learn from their home computers.
  

   

• Local districts voting next week on online charter schools Apr 6, 2013 12:00 AM
  The organizers behind a proposed online charter school Friday released a 1,018-page answer to the questions posed by members of the 18 school districts that have to vote on the request. Several of the boards, including Geneva and Kaneland, are due to vote on the proposal as soon as Monday.
  

   
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  Teaming Up for Taxes program benefits Boys and Girls ClubApr 5, 2013 12:00 AM
  Leaders of the Boys and Girls Club of Dundee Township are hoping to build on last year's success with their Teaming Up For Taxes program and raise more when local residents have their state and federal income taxes prepared by one of eight participating firms. Under terms of the project, the firms donate to the club $1 for every income tax return they prepare until Tax Day, April 15.
  

   

• District 300 leaders grill online charter school reps Mar 19, 2013 12:00 AM
  Community Unit District 300 is one of 18 districts that received a charter school proposal from Virtual Learning Solutions, a nonprofit, in February. Board of education members considered the application Tuesday during a public hearing and continued their discussion in closed session. Board members and administrators spent nearly three hours grilling charter school board secretary Ted Dabrowski and K12 school development manager Seth McKinzie, often receiving responses of "I don't know" and "we'll get back to you."
  

   

• Kids home on break puts greater demand on food pantry Mar 18, 2013 12:00 AM
  With spring break in District 300 falling the week before Easter, which puts a greater strain on the FISH Food pantry's resources due to students eating all their meals at home, the pantry's holiday dinners may be leaner than usual. "Unless we receive some thorough donations, we will not be giving out hams or potatoes this year," president Mary Graziano said. "We will be giving out the normal supplies we give all year long."
  

   

• Gilberts: Keep our students at Gilberts School Mar 15, 2013 12:00 AM
  Village of Gilberts officials and members of the Gilberts Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization are taking an early stand against potential boundary changes affecting their elementary school. Community Unit District 300 officials announced in January they would be considering boundary changes that would take effect as early as the 2014-15 academic year.
  

   

• District 300 considers taking a stand on special education ratiosMar 11, 2013 12:00 AM
  Community Unit District 300 board members are considering expanding their legislative priorities to include advocating for more local control. The state's "70/30 rule" limits the number of students with disabilities in a mixed education classroom to 30 percent of the total. The Illinois State Board of Education proposed eliminating that rule in February, which, if approved, would allow districts to choose their own ratios.
  

   
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  Strikes a lasting part of Senate Bill 7's legacy? Mar 10, 2013 12:00 AM
  An education reform package pushed through the state legislature in the spring of 2011 was hailed as nothing short of historic — among its components, limiting teachers' ability to strike. Or so its authors thought. But two years after Senate Bill 7's passage — and a year after its implementation — many more strikes are occurring, making them a lasting part of the education reform package's legacy.
  

   

• Strikes don’t add much heat to school board races Mar 10, 2013 12:00 AM
  Suburban school districts have seen an unusual number of teacher's strikes in recent months. Yet, those strikes — and the disagreements that led to them — have not been a major force in campaigns leading up to the April 9 school board election.
  

   
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  Retired teachers group seeks politically active members Mar 6, 2013 12:00 AM
  Brian Mooberry was an active member of state and national teachers unions for his entire career and he didn't stop for a minute once he retired in 2007, after 33 years with Elgin Area School District U-46. Now Mooberry and a group of other retired teachers are working to grow membership in Northern Kane County Retired Educators. "Our goal in the organization is to become politically active and do the things that teachers can't do because they're in the classroom," Mooberry said.