|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
News
29 students transfer schools, board told : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, Illinois29 students transfer schools, board told
| Parents at several local schools take advantage of 'No Child' act provision
| by Lyle R. Rolfe
| 9/6/2012
|
A total of eight Oswego School District schools were required to allow their students an opportunity to transfer to other school in the district this school year because the schools did not meet federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements.
Superintendent Dr. Matthew Wendt said the schools did not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for two or more consecutive years in one content area, as required under the NCLB act.
As a result, parents or guardians of students at the schools had the chance to send their students to any of the other schools in the district that did make AYP.
As of Aug. 23, a total of 29 students requested transfers.
Parents had until Aug. 29 to request transfers for their children, according to Wendt.
Parents requested transfers for students at Boulder Hill Elementary and Long Beach Elementary schools in the unincorporated Boulder Hill Subdivision, Traughber, Plank and Thompson junior high schools, all in Oswego, and Oswego East High School, also in Oswego.
Parents also could request transfers from two other schools, Lakewood Creek Elementary in Montgomery and Oswego High School in Oswego. However, no transfer requests were made for students at those two schools.
Wendt said one Boulder Hill student transferred to Churchill; six to Fox Chase; eight to Old Post; three to The Wheatlands and one to Wolf's Crossing. Both The Wheatlands and Wolf's Crossing are located in the Aurora portion of the school district.
Two Long Beach students transferred to Churchill, seven to Old Post, one to Homestead in Aurora and two to Southbury in Oswego.
Wendt said three students from Plank transferred to the Bednarcik Junior High School, also in the Aurora portion of the district.
One of the Thompson students transferred to Bednarcik and the other two are attending Murphy Junior High School in the Plainfield portion of the district.
A total of two Traughber students are now enrolled at Bednarcik, Wendt said.
Although there has been talk of changing the NCLB program goals, nothing has been done to date, he said. Wendt noted that "...eventually, every school in the United States of American will fail unless they meet 100 percent" of the NCLB requirements. He said this would be an impossible goal to meet nationwide.
Board Member Ali Swanson said parents should have had more time to make a decision on whether to change schools.
Dr. Carla Johnson, executive director of teaching and learning, said the district usually receives test results and AYP information from the Illinois State Board of Education at the end of June or start of July.
But when it was not received by then, Johnson said they contacted the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) numerous times and were told that they were waiting to see if they would receive a waiver from the program by the federal government.
The district finally received its AYP information from the ISBE on July 31, Johnson said. Even on that day, the list of schools was still being changed, she added. The district complied with the ISBE rules and even made phone calls to parents in the affected schools to be sure they knew they could transfer schools, she said.
Johnson noted the district must provide bus transportation for the students who have transferred.
But when their home schools meet AYP, students have a choice-return to the home school or parents must provide transportation if they stay at the school they transferred to.
Wendt said he believes Congress will make some improvements in the NCLB program, including changing the name. But no one knows when this may happen, he added.
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
