How school districts help families with less

Melissa Buenik knows that if students are hungry, it's much harder for them to learn.

So, the Mundelein High School social worker helps teachers identify teens who might not be getting enough to eat at home.

"We look for observable behavior in class. Agitation, sleepiness, little things like that," she said.

"Once we ask, kids are pretty quick to respond and tell us, 'Yeah, my family is having financial trouble right now.'"

To help, Mundelein keeps a food pantry stocked with nonperishable groceries and toiletries, all donated by staff. That pantry, she said, is seeing a lot more visitors this year.

The school's percentage of low-income students rose to 24.2 percent in 2009, up 5.4 points from the year before. This fall, the staff believes the number is even higher.

Across the suburbs, districts are using different strategies to serve their growing numbers of low-income students.

A Daily Herald analysis found 75 of 90 districts in Lake, DuPage, McHenry, Kane and Cook counties saw their percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals rise this year.

Five local districts - West Chicago Elementary District 33, Round Lake Unit District 116, Addison Elementary District 4, Bensenville Elementary District 2 and Elgin Area School District U-46 - now have close to 50 percent of students classified as low-income.

Other districts, in traditionally middle-class areas like Des Plaines, Roselle and Bloomingdale - saw 7- to 13-percentage-point increases.

For the first time this year, five high-poverty schools in Community Consolidated District 62 in Des Plaines are able to use their federal Title I funds earmarked for low-income students for schoolwide programs, rather than only on certain students.

Title I funding originally was established in 1965 under the American Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and revised in 2001 after No Child Left Behind was implemented. Its purpose, according to the legislation, is "to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments."

Schools that have high percentages of students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunches are eligible to receive the funds.

Schools must use the funds to attempt to improve achievement, but have a choice on how to do so - hiring reading or math specialists, enhancing curriculum, or providing more professional development opportunities for teachers.

According to the State Board of Education, Title I funds can be distributed in two ways: targeted assistance programs to help specifically identified students, or schoolwide programs in places where children from low-income homes make up 40 percent or more of the student body.

For their schools to be able to distribute the federal funds on a schoolwide basis, District 62 was required to conduct a study of its needs for a year, submit that study to the state board of education, and get approval from its own school board, Assistant Superintendent Diep Nguyen said.

The change, she believes, better helps the five schools address the needs of their students.

"Even though the state would like to divide our students into subgroups, we've found students often belong to more than one group," she said.

Minority students or students new to English, for example, often also come from low-income homes.

"In many cases they are the same students," Nguyen said. "What we'd like to do is take an integrated approach to solving these problems. We identify our students (for interventions) based on their academic needs."

Applying the federal dollars to schoolwide programs "afford us the flexibility to do that," she said.

District 62 school principals are allowed some flexibility in how to use the funds.

Algonquin Middle School in Des Plaines, which has 44.4 percent of students coming from low-income homes, has used some of its federal funds to hire two extra reading specialists this year.

The school has also been able to purchase computers and software programs to provide students with extra support, Swanson said.

"In the old days, that would have to be for the kids specifically designated for Title I," he said.

Elgin Area School District U-46 last year made a decision to redo its formula for designating schools that receive Title I funds.

In the past, Superintendent Jose Torres said, only the poorest 14 of U-46's 53 schools received funds.

"There was this artificial line that we created (in the past) to concentrate resources," he said.

Last year, U-46's school board moved to spread out its allocation of federal money to more schools with low-income students. Last year, 31 schools received the funds.

Federal money comes with strings attached.

"Once you designate a school Title I you have to deal with all the repercussions," Torres said.

The federal No Child Left Behind law sets a yearly benchmark for the number of a school's students expected to meet or exceed proficiency on standardized tests. Schools that fail to meet those targets after a certain amount of time get placed on state and federal watch lists.

After failing to meet No Child Left Behind standards for two or more years in a row, Title I schools must offer students several options, including the choice to attend another higher-performing school in the district or supplemental tutoring services.

"But I figure we need the resources to be there," U-46's Torres said. "The accountability system is going to change someday. You cannot have 100 percent of your schools failing."

This year, 47 of the 75 suburban districts that saw their percentage of low-income students grow were dubbed "failing."

Tefft Middle School in Streamwood might well be considered a model for growth alongside an increasing number of low-income students. The school recently was named one of the National Association of Secondary School Principals' "Breakthrough Schools" for dramatically improving achievement while serving a large number of students living in poverty.

Tefft saw its percentage of low-income students rise from 36.8 percent in 2002 to 55.3 percent last year.

In 2002, just 56 percent of Tefft students were meeting benchmarks in reading and math on standardized tests, according to state report cards. In 2009, 86.7 percent of students are meeting or exceeding standards.

Principal Lavonne Smiley said the school has spent the past several years developing and implementing novel strategies to raise student achievement.

"We really, really had to sharpen our focus," she said.

The strategies include establishing quarterly learning targets for classes in each subject and new measures to make sure students are staying on track.

Students who miss even one homework assignment are required to attend after-school tutoring sessions, Smiley said.

Additionally, students chart their own performance throughout the year and lead their own parent-teacher conferences.

"We really have seen a lot of success with it," Smiley said. "You're empowering kids. It drives them to see progress. They can say, 'In October I was here and now it's January and look at where I am now.'"

Despite strong scores and the national recognition, Tefft is still considered a failing school in the eyes of the federal No Child Left Behind law because students in two subgroups - those learning English and special education students - failed to meet reading benchmarks.

"Think about it. That's the flaw of the law," Smiley said.