In Case You Missed It – December 16, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Consider the first sentence of this San Diego Union-Tribune, typical of school reporting: Unified finds literacy gaps in kindergarten and middle school:

Many San Diego Unified kindergartners are already arriving at school behind grade level in reading, and reading scores take a hit when students reach middle school, district testing data show.

How can kindergartners be behind when they haven’t started formal schooling?" -- Nancy Bailey in How Assessment and Data are Used to Stigmatize Children as Failing

WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE TO TESTING

How Assessment and Data are Used to Stigmatize Children as Failing

We haven't escaped from the damage done by No Child Left Behind. We're still overusing and misusing tests.

From Nancy Bailey's Education Website

School districts continue to purchase high-cost commercialized tests that depersonalize teaching, stigmatize children and schools as failing, and build public distrust.

Assessment should inform educators and parents about where children are academically and behaviorally, but it doesn’t appear to improve learning.

Current tests appear to primarily be used to collect data, invading a child’s and family’s privacy. Such tests often stigmatize children as failing, and there are so many tests.

Aren’t there less costly methods that help teachers and parents understand how a child is doing that don’t share a child’s personal information, tests that lift children instead of disparaging them?

THE COMING ANTI-PUBLIC EDUCATION STORM

How will the Trump administration's education policies impact public education?

Will Trump Really End The Department Of Education

The plans are to leave schools alone and to micromanage them at the same time.

From Peter Greene in Forbes

The list of goals may or may not be current, but it underlines a basic contradiction at the heart of Trump’s education plans. The various goals can be boiled down to two overall objectives:

1) To end all federal involvement and oversight of local schools

2) To exert tight federal control over local schools

Trump has promised that schools will not teach “political indoctrination,” that they will teach students to be “love their country,” that there will be school prayer, that students will “have access to” project-based learning, and that schools will expel students who harm teachers or other students. He has also proposed stripping money from colleges and universities that indoctrinate students and using the money to set up a free of charge “world class education” system.

Above all, he has promised that he “will be closing up” the Department of Education. Of course, he said that in 2016 with control of both houses of Congress and it did not happen.

What Should We Be Watching For if Linda McMahon Is Confirmed as Education Secretary?

Do Republicans care about public education?

From Jan Resseger

...We ought to consider the implications when “outsiders” are appointed to manage the federal department which administers the myriad federal programs that shape opportunities for vulnerable students in public schools across the 50 states. At the center of every town and suburb and urban neighborhood, public schools are among our society’s most central and important civic and social institutions. Developed over the past two centuries, public schools are universally available and accessible, and they are institutions which, by law, must serve each child’s academic needs and must protect all students’ rights. In public schools our children come together to think, learn, and listen respectfully to others in schools served by credentialed professionals.

Trump and McMahon’s America First Agenda

Click this link to contact your legislators.

From Network for Public Education Action

Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, is the Board Chair of America First, which has an agenda for K-12 schools. It is filled with a subtle plan to defund public schools while exerting Soviet-style surveillance over what our teachers teach and students learn. Watch the video to learn more.

TEACHER SUES OVER LGBTQ+ BOOKS

Teacher Sues After Being Suspended for Having Books With LGBTQ+ Characters in Her Classroom

An Ohio teacher sues their school district.

From Religion Clause blog

A third-grade teacher in the southern Ohio village of New Richmond filed suit last week in an Ohio federal district court seeking damages for the 3-day suspension imposed on her for having four books in her classroom's book collection that have LGBTQ+ characters in them. The school claimed that the books violated the District's Policy 2240 on Controversial Issues in the Classroom.

GIFTS FOR TEACHER

Gifts of Christmas Past

"Teaching offers many very rewarding experiences, but it’s not and never has been about the great swag."

From Teacher in a Strange Land

In a holiday-themed archetype of legislative overreach, Alabama passed an ethics law back in 2011, forbidding K-12 school teachers from accepting expensive presents. Previous legislation set a $100 limit on individual gifts to public workers, but the 2011 law specified that gifts to teachers be limited to those of nominal value. The stated purpose: to reinforce ethical practices by state employees.

This was such a big deal that the AL Ethics Commission was receiving about 25 calls a day from parents who didn’t want to get their children’s teachers in trouble. The Ethics Commission released a detailed report, letting parents know that cookies, hand lotion and mugs are OK. What I found interesting was what was forbidden. Four examples: hams, turkeys, cash and “anything a teacher could re-sell.”

I was a classroom teacher for more than 30 years. I received hundreds of Christmas and end-of-year gifts over that time. And I never got a turkey or a ham. Maybe that’s an Alabama thing?

ALLEN COUNTY WELCOMES DOLLY PARTON'S IMAGINATION LIBRARY

ACPL launches Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library comes to Allen County.

From 21 Alive News

The Allen County Public Library has officially launched Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

The program provides free, age-appropriate books to local children from birth to age five.

Officials from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Indiana say Allen County experienced the second-highest registration numbers in the country in its first month of signing children up for the program.

Those interested in signing a child up for the program can do so here. It takes about eight to 12 weeks from enrollment for children to receive their first book, which they then receive monthly.

There is no cost to families.

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – April 29, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"The number of individual books banned by schools is soaring to a record level, according to a new PEN America report Banned in the USA: Narrating the Crisis. The report documents over 4,000 instances of book banning during the first half of the current school year – more than in the entire previous 2022-2023 school year.

"The report, which examines book bans from July to December 2023, details book bans in 52 public school districts across 23 states. Bans took place in both red and blue districts." -- from Pen America in New Report Finds Unprecedented Surge in School Books Bans

UNTRADITIONAL EDUCATION

The Return of the Tradteacher

Should we support untraditional teaching, curriculum, and school organization models?

From Teacher in a Strange Land

Been reading about the tradwife lately? Although explicit definitions vary, the general gist is returning to a post-war conception of a stay-at-home wife, most likely with children (or planning for children), in relationships where men make all the family decisions, and control the finances. Reinforcing patriarchal norms and glorifying the satisfying and ‘natural’ role of housewife.

If you’re hearing a touch of cynicism there, well—I lived through a time when the tradwife, even if she was working, could not get a credit card or substantial business loan. While I certainly defend any woman’s right to stay home and support her children and spouse in places other than an outside workplace, the whole “tradwife” schtick (especially combined with the rollback of Roe) makes me itchy.

It also strikes me that tradwives are just another glitzy, social media-driven facet of a larger wave of backlash against a whole lot of un-trad trends in American society: Full-blown reproductive freedom. The continued shrinkage of mainline religions. Honoring personal sex/gender choices. Women running for office and corner offices–and winning. And so on.

I also see lots of pushback against untraditional teaching, curriculum and school organization models. The whole “Science of Reading” battle rings very familiar to those of us who started teaching in the 1970s, when teachers were pushing back against the “Why Johnny Can’t Read” –because teachers theoretically weren’t teaching phonics–crusade in the late 50s.

SUPPORT PUBLIC EDUCATION

Defend the People’s Schools

Tom Ultican offers a source for those who support public education.

From Tultican

I am sure you’ll be shocked to your core but there are some really bad people out there trying to end publicly-financed free education.

Since the beginning to the 21st millennium, misguided wealthy people have been attacking public education. The reasons range from religion to hubris. Betsy DeVos thinks secular education is an insult to her Christian God. Bill Gates believes he knows more than anyone else and Charles Koch is opposed to all government-sponsored social action. That would all be fine if they were not billionaires, using immense wealth to impose their way.

Truth-in-Funding (TiF) offers tools for opposing their propaganda with a webpage providing links to 25 organizations, working to protect public schools. Organizations such as National Education Policy Center, Network for Public Education and Education Law Center share links to their research along with toolkits for delivering the message.

TiF’s homepage states:

“School voucher programs use public funds to pay for private education costs. These programs are spreading despite overwhelming evidence that they are harmful public policy.”

And their about page says:

“This website offers a wide range of tools from groups that oppose vouchers and other efforts to divert public funding in education. We work to protect the vital institution of public education and ensure all students have access to welcoming, well-resourced public schools.”

GOOD TEACHERS

David Berliner: The U.S. Has Many Wonderful Teachers, and Few Who Are “Bad” Teachers

Good teachers are out there.

From Diane Ravitch
[quote edited for typos]

A refereed journal article by colleagues reported on a survey of adults, asking for their beliefs about “good teachers.” The respondents defined good teachers as those who “knew me, cared about me, and wanted me to do well; created interesting activities for us to do; praised me and other students for good grades and improvements; gave extra help or a challenge to students who needed or wanted it; covered a lot of material that was useful; and made learning relevant to me and my life.”

These respondents had little trouble recalling such teachers. Good teachers demonstrated caring and support, along with strong subject matter knowledge. They also estimated that more than two-thirds of their teachers were good or very good teachers, and they believed that only 12% of their teachers were bad or very bad.

With a different set of colleagues, I studied what students said about their “bad teachers”. In that study we had access to 4.8 million ratings of teachers! Using a 100-point scale, 55% of our respondents gave a maximum rating of 100 (the best score), 75% gave a rating of 80 or more, and 89% gave a rating greater than 50 points. These data are compatible with other studies suggesting that America’s students are exposed to high percentages of “good” teachers, and a low percentage of “bad” teachers.

LOCAL NEWS

FWCS board approves new math curriculum adoption

Students in Fort Wayne will learn math with new curriculum materials.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Fort Wayne Community Schools board on Monday approved a new math curriculum for elementary and middle school students.

The board approved buying both i-Ready from Curriculum Associates of North Billerica, Mass., and Indiana Reveal from McGraw Hill of Columbus. The district will spend more than $3.5 million total on the curriculum.

i-Ready will be used for elementary students, and Indiana Reveal will be used at the middle school level. Both resources are Indiana standard-aligned and can be used in core, small group and individualized instruction.

Courtney Lumbley, FWCS director of curriculum, instruction and assessment, said the district started the pilot process in fall 2022. She said 19 elementary and five middle schools have used the material. The pilot involved about 1,500 elementary and about 1,200 middle school students.

“We found so much value in the two-year process for teachers to really understand in depth what those publishers have to offer,” Lumbley said.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – April 22, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Does 3.0 represent a serious shift for the organization? Not really. The fundamental message of M4L has always been the same-- public schools are scary and terrible and good God-fearing people should either take them over or abandon them. Parental rights (but not student rights)! As Chris Rufo, hot young culture panic agitator, told a Hillsdale College audience, 'To get universal school choice, you really need to operate from a place of universal school distrust.'" -- From Peter Greene in Moms For Liberty 3.0

MOMS FOR LIBERTY VERSION 3

Moms For Liberty 3.0

Moms for Liberty - yet another group of right-wing warriors who hate public education.

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

First, there was Moms For Liberty Beta, called the Florida Coalition of School Board Members. Then came the actual Moms For Liberty launch, a group of ladies who were upset about masking and school building closures. That gave way pretty quickly to M4L 2.0, the group that was all about banning naughty books and clamping down on LGBTA ideology (whatever that is).

M4L 2.0 cruised along pretty well for a while. But as more people came to understand what they were up to, their thin skins, their desire to tell other moms what children should be allowed to read. their intolerance-- well, opposition started to swell. And their last election round wasn't very impressive (we'll never know exactly how unimpressive because, perhaps already sensing that their brand was tarnished, they backed away from endorsing so many candidates). And their beloved Ron DeSantis had to slink home in humiliation and defeat. And they went on 60 Minutes and couldn't really explain the terrible alleged indoctrination they were crusading against.

Make way for version 3.0.

CHARTER AUTHORIZER SHOPPING

Charter school goes shopping

Steve Hinnefeld at School Matters writes about what happens when failing charter schools go shopping for an authorizer after being dropped by a previous authorizer...or two.

From School Matters

Trine University came to the rescue eight years ago when Thea Bowman Leadership Academy was in danger of losing its charter and being shut down.

Now Trine has revoked the Gary, Indiana, school’s charter, citing academic and governance issues. But another private institution, Calumet College of St. Joseph, has stepped up.

“It’s funny how things have come full circle,” said Lindsay Omlor, executive director of Education One, Trine’s charter-school-authorizing office.

Today’s topic is authorizer shopping, what happens when charter schools jump from one authorizer to another to stay open or find a better deal. Thea Bowman looks to be taking the practice to a new level. It now has its third authorizer in less than a decade.

CASHING IN ON THE SCIENCE OF READING LAWS

Jobs’ Reading Scam

Retired teacher and blogger Tom Ultican, writes that the science behind “the Science of Reading” movement is not very scientific. Publishers and vendors are preparing to cash in on legislative mandates that force reading teachers to use only one method to teach reading despite the lack of evidence for its efficacy. Ultican zeroes in on the role of billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs as one of the key players in promoting SofR.

From Tultican

Laurene Powell Jobs controls Amplify, a kids-at-screens education enterprise. In 2011, she became one of the wealthiest women in the world when her husband, Steve, died. This former Silicon Valley housewife displays the arrogance of wealth, infecting all billionaires. She is now a “philanthropist”, in pursuit of both her concerns and biases. Her care for the environment and climate change are admirable but her anti-public school thinking is a threat to America. Her company, Amplify, sells the antithesis of good education.

I am on Amplify’s mailing list. April third’s new message said,

“What if I told you there’s a way for 95% of your students to read at or near grade level? Maybe you’ve heard the term Science of Reading before, and have wondered what it is and why it matters.”

Spokesperson, Susan Lambert, goes on to disingenuously explain how the Science of Reading (SoR) “refers to the abundance of research illustrating the best way students learn to read.”

This whopper is followed by a bigger one, stating:

“A shift to a Science of Reading-based curriculum can help give every teacher and student what they need and guarantee literacy success in your school. Tennessee school districts did just that and they are seeing an abundant amount of success from their efforts.”

A shift to SoR-based curriculum is as likely to cause harm as it is to bring literacy success. This was just a used-car salesman style claim. On the other hand, the “abundance of success” in Tennessee is an unadulterated lie. National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) tracks testing over time and is respected for education testing integrity. Tennessee’s NAEP data shows no success “from their efforts.” Their reading scores since 2013 have been down, not a lot but do not demonstrate an “abundance of success”.

EXHAUSTED SUPERHEROES

Too Much For Mere Mortals

Former classroom teacher Peter Greene knows that teachers are overworked. There are not enough hours in the day for them to meet all their obligations. What to do?

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

Being overworked is part of the gig, and some of us wear our ability to manage that workload as a badge of honor, like folks who are proud of surviving an initiation hazing and insist that the new recruits should suck it up and run the same gauntlet. On reflection, I must admit this may not be entirely healthy, especially considering the number of young teachers who blame themselves because they can't simply gut their way past having overloaded circuits.

There's also resistance because the "let's give teachers a break" argument is used by 1) vendors with "teacher-assisting" junk to sell and 2) folks who want to deprofessionalize teaching. That second group likes the notion of "teacher-proof" programs, curriculum in a box that can be delivered by any dope ("any dope" constitutes a large and therefor inexpensive labor pool).

We could lighten the teacher load, the argument goes, by reducing their agency and autonomy. Not in those exact words, of course. That would make it obvious why that approach isn't popular.

INDIANA TESTING: NEW ILEARN FORMAT

New ILEARN format will allow for more personalized learning for students

From The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

An estimated 1,200 Hoosier schools including those in the Fort Wayne Community and East Allen County districts will pilot a new ILEARN assessment format next school year. This adds three preparatory tests to be administered prior to the typical end-of-year exam.

Summative assessments are intended to collect data on student performance, pinpoint problem areas and spur improved educational programs. But Indiana’s low proficiency rates on standardized tests have been used by proponents of the state’s school voucher system to claim public schools are failing Hoosiers.

The new setup, which will be adopted statewide for the 2025-26 school year, moves away from that played-out game. Instead, the preparation tests are diagnostic, helping teachers and parents learn where students between grades 3 and 8 are performing academically throughout the year and could better prepare them for the spring summative exam.

Approved by the State Board of Education last summer, the three preparatory tests will contain 20 to 25 questions focusing on four to six state education standards and a shortened summative exam in the spring. The new ILEARN setup will help educators implement remediation and intervention, such as additional tutoring for students who require it, ahead of the end-of-year exam, said Education Secretary Katie Jenner.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – December 4, 2023

Here are links to the last two week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Taxpayers can end up paying for the same building multiple times. First, the taxpayers pay for the school district to build it. Then they pay for the charter operator to buy it from the school district. Then, in cases like the White Hat fiasco, they end up not owning the building at all, as the CMO [Charter Management Organization], or some CMO real estate subsidiary, walks off with the building when the charter fails. In the worst of situations, this means that CMOs actually win whether the charter school succeeds or not." -- Peter Greene in Charter School Real Estate Profits

PRIVATIZATION: CHARTERS

Charter School Real Estate Profits

How many times should the public purchase a single school building? With charters managing their own real estate, it can be more than once.

From Curmudgucation

The ultimate problem with charters getting into the real estate business is that it exacerbates a fundamental flaw of the "run schools like a business" approach of free market based school choice-- if a school is a business, then its interests conflict with the interests of students. Every dollar spent educating students is a dollar not spent enriching the business and its owners, and vice versa. The argument that the free market will punish the business for not spending enough on students is not really valid; in a free market, the challenge for an education-flavored business is not how to provide the very best education for students, but how to find the bare minimum they can get away with and still make a profit. Maximizing profit means minimizing service provided.

That tension is present in all free marketeering of education. But when the most attractive driver of profit is not even the service, but the building the service is housed in, it just makes matters worse.

PRIVATIZATION: VOUCHERS

It’s time for private schools to open the books

Private schools that use taxpayer dollars need to be open about where the money is being spent. Note, too, that most vouchers go to religious institutions which pay no taxes of their own.

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

Maybe you saw the yard signs this summer? Across the state, a private organization — the Institute for Quality Education — put money toward promoting the dollar amount a child can receive from the state of Indiana to help pay for private school.

It’s around $6,000 this school year, per the yard signs. In 2023-24, almost all Hoosier children qualify for a private school voucher if they can find a private school that will accept them.

A program that was founded on the premise of providing opportunities for low-income and minority families has grown significantly since it was first challenged in court in 2012, one year after state legislators passed legislation establishing it. Yet while the program has expanded to include almost all families, the same problems persist: little accountability for taxpayers and few protections for families.

As the state sends millions more tax dollars to private schools this year — an estimated $500 million, more than 35 times the initial cost to taxpayers in the 2011-12 school year — taxpayers still have no idea how these voucher dollars are being used by the schools that receive them. Is the money going into the classroom to help students? Unsure. Is the school financially distressed? Who knows.

There are no state-required audits as there are for public schools. There are no public school board meetings in which to ask questions.

Indiana vouchers grew less than expected

Small comfort...

From School Matters

Indiana’s private school voucher program grew by a third this fall, according to data from the state Department of Education. Some 69,271 students were awarded state-funded vouchers to pay for private school tuition. That’s up from 52,614 in fall 2022.

It’s less of an increase than was expected when the Indiana General Assembly dramatically expanded eligibility for the program. Families now qualify if their income is no more than four times the threshold for reduced-price school meals. That’s $220,000 for a family of four.

An estimated 97% of Hoosier students should qualify. When the voucher expansion passed as part of the state budget, the state Legislative Services Agency projected the program and its cost would grow by over 70%, to over a half billion dollars in 2023-24.

That seemed like a reasonable guess. According to last year’s state voucher report, over 35,000 students attended private schools with their families paying their own way. If most of those families now qualified and opted for vouchers – and if the increasingly generous program drew more students to private schools – a big increase in the program would be expected.

TIME TO PAY TEACHERS MORE

How Can Anyone Afford to Teach Anymore?

Normally, when there's a shortage of workers, the pay goes up. Not so with teachers. Is it because teachers are mostly women? Is it because privatizers want an employee base of workers who can be replaced cheaply? Whatever the reason, teachers continue to take a pay cut just by their choice of profession. America's priorities need some adjustments.

From The Progressive

Teacher shortages have been reported in all fifty states, and 86 percent of public schools are hard pressed to fill vacant teaching positions. Low pay is often cited as a cause of the shortages. Let’s put that in context.

On average, teacher pay in the United States is nearly 25 percent less than what other college graduates receive, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). If you are a teacher in New Hampshire, as I am, your paycheck is nearly 30 percent less than other college graduates. Let that sink in.

People who go into teaching are taking on the same level of debt as other college graduates (or more), yet they are receiving nowhere near the same financial benefits. The typical U.S. graduate with a four year degree walked away with their diploma and $29,417 in debt in 2022. In my home state, the average debt for a bachelor’s degree topped the nation at an astounding $39,928.

TRUST TEACHERS

Standardized Tests Lie

Your child's teacher knows more about education than do the legislators in Indianapolis. Your child's teacher knows more about your child's progress than can be shown on any standardized test. Trust educators.

From Gadfly on the Wall

Whom do you trust?

So much in life comes down to that simple question.

When two groups disagree, which one do you believe?

...Those with the most exposure to the most diverse educational experiences are teachers and testing companies.

On the one side you have teachers who instruct students for at least 180 days a year, giving formal and informal assessments throughout to provide a classroom grade. On the other you have the testing companies that give students a single assessment over a period of hours or days.

And often they come to different conclusions.

Many times children get high classroom grades but low scores on the standardized test.

So let us ask the question that the media never does: which should we believe?

FORT WAYNE LOCAL NEWS

4 northeast Indiana school districts get state literacy grants

Indiana has jumped into the Science of Reading Movement. For information, see the Executive Summary of The Science of Reading Movement: The Never-Ending Debate and the Need for a Different Approach To Reading Instruction by Paul Thomas of Furman University, published by the National Education Policy Center.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Indiana has awarded nearly $15 million in grants to support literacy, including more than $850,000 to four northeast school districts.

The Indiana Department of Education announced on Monday that 72 school corporations would receive the grants, which are expected to reach more than 65,000 students in kindergarten through third grade. The grants are meant to support the implementation of evidence-based practices aligned with science of reading.

Science of reading integrates instructional practices with efforts focused on phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, the news release said.

Fort Wayne Community Schools Plans for 'Success'

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

FWCS Superintendent Mark Daniel is looking forward to when the students who are in eighth grade now become high school seniors.

That’s because the class of 2028 will be the first to experience the Schools of Success, Fort Wayne Community Schools’ new approach to high school.

Snider's Kurt Tippmann one of five national Power of Influence Award winners

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Snider football coach Kurt Tippmann is one of five coaches to win the Power of Influence Award, the American Football Coaches Association announced on Thursday.

School district donates land to Fort Wayne trail project

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools is contributing to the city’s Hanna Street Trail construction efforts.

Fort Wayne Community Schools plans $2 million in North Side stadium upgrades

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

A Fort Wayne high school athletics facility is set for nearly $2 million in upgrades, including installation of synthetic turf.

Northwest Allen County Schools tweaks school capacities as redistricting eyed

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The demographic firm Northwest Allen County Schools hired to develop redistricting scenarios will have updated school capacity information to consider as it creates options for the growing district.

Audit reveals equity priorities at Fort Wayne Community Schools

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools board members informally indicated their support Monday for requiring culturally diverse training for employees.

“Diversity is huge in our district,” President Maria Norman said during an hourlong work session about equity. “I think anything that we can do to help people better understand different cultures, different races...”

Fort Wayne Community Schools addresses student behavior with $10,000 grant

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

A consultant will provide educators at a Fort Wayne middle school with strategies to reduce unwanted student behavior, thanks to a $10,000 grant from the Indiana State Teachers Association Foundation.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – October 16, 2023

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"In our society, teaching is not a high status position. It used to be considered women’s work, probably still is by many people. How wonderful it would be if we had fully transcended the cruelty of the old joke: “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; those who can’t teach, teach gym.” But we haven’t. I regularly hear legislators in my state explaining that if someone who knew what he was doing were put in charge, teachers would be forced to improve test scores immediately. The implication, of course, is that teaching is simply a matter of the production of test scores, and teachers don’t produce.

"The tragedy of this kind of thinking is that the same teachers whom people attack and insult are the human beings to whom we trust the formation of our children. The opinion polls tell us that we handle this contradiction by learning to know, respect, and appreciate our own child’s teacher even as we fail to protest the barrage of attacks on teachers in general." -- Jan Resseger in Sylvia Allegretto Documents Large and Persistent Teacher Pay Penalty

TEACHERS' PAY PENALTY GROWS

Sylvia Allegretto Documents Large and Persistent Teacher Pay Penalty

Why is it okay to pay teachers less than other professionals with similar training? Is it because most teachers are women? Is it because we don't really care about our children after all?

From Jan Resseger

In the introduction to her annual report on the teacher pay penalty, published last week by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Sylvia Allegretto acknowledges the challenges teachers face: “Teachers have one of the most consequential jobs in the country—they have the future of the U.S. in front of them every day. But teaching is becoming a less appealing career choice for new college graduates. Not only are levels of compensation low, but teaching is becoming increasingly stressful as teachers are forced to navigate battles over curriculum and COVID-19 related mandates as well as rising incidence of violence in schools. Low pay makes recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers difficult.

Here are Allegretto’s conclusions about the trend in teachers’ wages and compensation through 2022:

• “The pay penalty for teachers—the gap between the weekly wages of teachers and college graduates working in other professions—grew to a record 26.4% in 2022, a significant increase from 6.1% in 1996.
• “Although teachers tend to receive better benefits packages than other professionals do, this advantage is not large enough to offset the growing wage penalty for teachers.
• “On average, teachers earned 73.6 cents for every dollar that other professionals made in 2022. This is much less than the 93.9 cents on the dollar they made in 1996.”

Allegretto explains: “Because public school teachers must attain at least a bachelor’s degree to teach in the U.S., this research compares teachers with college graduates working in other professions… Over the past two decades, the weekly wages and total compensation of public school teachers have fallen further and further behind… Recent high inflation has significantly reduced the average weekly wages of teachers but has had less of an effect on other college graduates… The erosion of relative weekly wages for teachers continued apace in 2022.” “Teachers generally receive a higher share of their total compensation as benefits than other professionals do, partially offsetting the weekly wage penalty.” But, “the benefits advantage for teachers has not been enough to offset the growing wage penalty.”

SUPPORT PUBLIC EDUCATION

The Plot to Take Down Public Schools

From Diane Ravitch

Recently the Network for Public Education and the Education Law Center sponsored a zoom conversation with Nick Surgey. Nick is an experienced investigative journalist who works with an organization called Documented, which digs into the Dark Money groups undermining Public schools and other democratic institutions. Nick has done the legwork that identified the money and people behind the home schooling movement, as well as the rightwing Alliance for Defending Freedom. He has worked with the Center for Media and Democracy and other pro-democracy organizations.

This is a discussion you should definitely tune into.

INDIANA AND FORT WAYNE LOCAL NEWS

Five of our articles this week come from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Please consider subscribing to this important local source of news and information. Remember "all politics is local," and education is funded through politics. See the link at the end of this post.

FWCS referendum will help in coping with school — and life

FWCS works to help students cope with mental health issues.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

On Oct. 7, The Journal Gazette’s editorial board questioned the need for Fort Wayne Community Schools’ safety and well-being referendum on the Nov. 7 ballot, asking the question: “Should schools go even deeper into providing for student mental health and wellness?”

The answer from the SAFER FWCS Political Action Committee is simple:

If not us, then who?

The most recent Indiana KIDS COUNT data from the Indiana Youth Institute paints a bleak picture. In 2021, more than 1 in 4 high school students reported having seriously considered attempting suicide, and nearly half of all high school students reported being sad or feeling hopeless every day for at least two weeks.

These statistics are not surprising to educators, who saw a significant decline in student mental health during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The same report showed teachers at 62% of schools tried to increase student knowledge on suicide prevention in a required course in grades 6-12. That is up from fewer than 20% of schools doing so in 2012.

Should schools be responsible for solving this mental health crisis? Maybe not, but Fort Wayne Community Schools has never been a district to throw up its hands and say, “It’s not our fault. There is nothing we can do. Someone else needs to fix it.”

FWCS is already seeing what its plan can do in a pilot at South Side High School.

In voting to put the referendum on the ballot, the FWCS Board of School Trustees sent a message: Not on our watch. FWCS will not stand by when there are steps that can be taken inside schools to create an even safer learning environment.

New Indiana law stokes worries for LGBTQ+ students

The new laws affecting LGBTQ+ students impact the daily lives of real people.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Snider High School’s gay-straight alliance no longer takes attendance or maintains a membership roster, and participants are mindful about what’s visible to their faculty advisers during the club’s weekly one-hour meetings.

Known as the Rainbow Connection, the group wants to reduce the risk of teachers seeing members’ deadnames – names used before a gender transition – because of state legislation that took effect July 1. It requires school districts to notify a student’s parent or guardian if the student requests a name or pronoun change.

The new rule interferes with Rainbow Connection’s priority of keeping members safe and letting them be true to themselves, participants say. Students might have parents who are unsupportive or could potentially endanger them for not being cisgender – a term meaning not transgender – or straight, said Phoenix Bodner, co-president.

“Adjusting to it when the school year started actually delayed Rainbow Connection’s opening by a couple weeks because we needed to find a way to work around the fact that it posed a serious risk to the safety and security of our members,” Bodner said by email.

Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana and the Indiana Educational Equity Coalition, raised such concerns when legislators proposed the bill. It also prohibits schools from teaching human sexuality before fourth grade.

South Side sees success with piloted Safer FWCS initiatives

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

The South Side High School that student Olivia Soto attends as a senior is different from the South Side that welcomed her as a freshman.

The atmosphere has transformed from a place where students would walk through hallways with their heads down – phones out and earbuds in – to a vibrant school where teens smile, wave and high-five others.

“You feel seen and present at the school,” Soto told the Fort Wayne Community Schools board Monday during a presentation about safety updates. “You’re not just there to learn. You’re there making connections, and you’re in this community at South Side.”

Although the safety presentation included districtwide information, South Side received much of the focus because it is piloting elements that FWCS would like to expand to other schools with referendum funding.

Enrollment growth prompts Northwest Allen County Schools to eye redistricting

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Enrollment growth in Northwest Allen County Schools this fall exceeded a demographer’s forecast by about 35%, and a surge in elementary students has prompted the district to reexamine its attendance areas.

Superintendent Wayne Barker stressed to the school board Monday that the overall 2.7% enrollment increase – an addition of 217 students – is positive, especially considering many Indiana districts are experiencing declining enrollment.

“This is a good thing for Northwest Allen County Schools,” he said.

FWCS proposal would boost teacher pay, including starting salary

FWCS has the lowest starting teacher salaries in the county. Increases would put the largest school system in the county in line with the others.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

A tentative two-year teachers contract would increase Fort Wayne Community Schools’ starting salary to $46,627 – making the district more competitive with its Allen County neighbors.

As proposed, the salary schedule will increase by 3% this academic year and 1% next year. But depending on how educators progress on the salary schedule – which considers performance and education levels – their pay could increase between 5.8% and 9.9% over two years.

The school board discussed these and other details Monday, two weeks before the elected leaders are expected to ratify the contract.

“I’m happy to pay them every penny we can,” board member Steve Corona said.

October is ADHD Awareness Month. Click for a link to the ADHD Awareness website.

• Myths and Facts about ADHD

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – August 7, 2023

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Parents who have children in public schools are satisfied with them, based on their experience. But the general public swallows the negative narrative spewed by the mainstream media and rightwing politicians and thus has a sour view of public schools. This gap in perception has persisted for many years but seems to be increasing as Republican politicians like Texas’s Greg Abbott and Florida’s Ron DeSantis amp up their attacks on public schools.

"Since it is not newsworthy to report that most parents are satisfied with their children’s public schools, the media loves to publish stories about crises and failure. Eventually, it becomes the conventional wisdom." -- Diane Ravitch

PARENTS OVERWHELMINGLY APPROVE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS -- AGAIN

Matt Barnum: Pundits and Politicians Despair about Public Schools, But Parents Are Happy with Them

As has been true for decades, American public school parents are happy with their children's public schools. Media coverage, on the other hand, means that "those other schools somewhere else" are no good.

If parents are overwhelmingly satisfied with their local schools, where are the terrible schools?

From Diane Ravitch

The pandemic upended many things about American schooling, but not this long-standing trend. In Gallup’s most recent poll, conducted late last year, 80% of parents said they were somewhat or completely satisfied with their child’s school, which in most cases was a public school. This was actually a bit higher than in most years before the pandemic. A string of other polls, conducted throughout the pandemic, have shown similar results.

“Contrary to elite or policy wonk opinion, which often is critical of schools, there have been years and years worth of data saying that families in general like their local public schools,” said Andy Smarick, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

THE PLAN TO STARVE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

For at least two decades the Indiana General Assembly and other state legislatures around the country have done their best to divert tax money from public schools to privately run charter schools and private religious schools. If someone had devised a plan to specifically strip public schools of needed funds they could not have come up with a better way to do it. This year, for example, more than 95% of Indiana families are eligible for vouchers to help pay for religious school education.

The voucher plan was originally meant to help low-income students "escape" from "failing" public schools. Most of the students who now use Indiana's school vouchers are not low-income, and many are from families who have been paying for private education without state assistance. For this reason, the Republican supermajority in the Indiana General Assembly has stopped referring to school vouchers as a plan to help low-income students and is now focused on "parental choice." Ironically, when schools are privatized it's the school that has the choice of what students are allowed to attend, not the other way around.

Instead of trying to fund three systems of education (public, charter, private/religious), the General Assembly ought to follow Article 8 of the Indiana Constitution and

...provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all

Textbook fee elimination will require adjustments

Fortunately, Indiana parents will no longer bear the burden of enormous textbook fees because of the inability (or refusal) of the legislature to fully fund public education.

Unfortunately, the General Assembly hasn't provided enough money to cover the costs of textbook fees for the state's public school systems.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Parents are getting a big win as their kids go back to school this year: no more textbook fees. But as the details unfold, school districts around the state are preparing for a shortfall between what the state is going to give them and what the actual costs are.

Lawmakers, pushed by GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb, did the right thing in the state budget and eliminated those pesky fees, which sometimes cost parents hundreds of dollars per child.

Indiana was one of only seven states to charge the fees even though the state constitution requires a free public education.

But there are questions about whether legislators set aside enough money to make up the costs.

Indiana's near-universal voucher program starts now

Billions of tax dollars are being funneled into the accounts of religious institutions.

From Axios Indianapolis

When Hoosier students start heading back to school this week, it's expected that thousands more will do so at a private school while the state picks up the tuition tab.

Driving the news: State lawmakers earlier this year expanded eligibility for the Indiana Choice Scholarship program, known as private school vouchers, allowing all but the wealthiest Hoosier families to get a voucher to cover at least part of the cost of private school tuition.

Why it matters: The change is expected to balloon participation in the program, diverting millions of public dollars away from public schools and sending the money instead to mostly religious schools that don't have to accept all students or follow the same non-discrimination laws.

How it works...

Evidence suggests voucher schools push out struggling students

Parents don't always get to choose their schools. Private and charter schools often choose their students.

From Steve Hinnefeld in the School Matters Blog

Do private schools push out students who receive state-funded tuition vouchers when they struggle academically? A newly published research study provides evidence that they do.

On the other hand, the researchers don’t find support for the idea that the schools are “cream skimming”: that is, admitting more voucher students who are high-achieving and easier to educate.

The study, “Cream Skimming and Pushout in Students Participating in a Statewide Private School Voucher Program,” was published in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Authors are R. Joseph Waddington and Ron Zimmer of the University of Kentucky and Mark Berends of Notre Dame.

...[The researchers] find little evidence that students with low test scores or a history of discipline problems were less likely to enroll in private schools with vouchers. But they do find evidence of pushout: for example, the lowest-achieving voucher students were 3 to 9 percentage points more likely to leave private schools than higher-achieving peers, a “modestly” higher rate.

WHO IS DOING THE INDOCTRINATION?

Florida Adopts Curriculum to Indoctrinate Students in Rightwing Views

The right-wing governor of Florida has complained that public schools try to "indoctrinate" and "groom" students. The opposite is true.

From Diane Ravitch

Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly says he opposes indoctrination in schools. Yet his administration in early July approved materials from a conservative group that says it’s all about indoctrination and “changing minds.”

The Florida Department of Education determined that educational materials geared toward young children and high school students created by PragerU, a nonprofit co-founded by conservative radio host Dennis Prager, were in alignment with the state’s standards on how to teach civics and government to K-12 students.

The content, some of which is narrated by conservative personalities such as Tucker Carlson and Candance Owens, features cartoons, five-minute video history lessons and story-time shows for young children. It is part of a brand called PragerU Kids. And the lessons share a common message: Being pro-American means aligning oneself to mainstream conservative talking points.

APPARENTLY, QUALIFICATIONS DO NOT MATTER

Houston: Miles Seeks Approval to Hire Uncertified Principals and Teachers

These folks know nothing about education. They apparently believe that "anyone" can teach. It takes a trained professional to make the thousands of daily educational decisions that teachers make. It's more than just babysitting.

From Diane Ravitch

Mike Miles is asking the Texas Education Agency to allow him to recruit uncertified teachers, principals, and deans. This move follows the Broadie playbook that education experience doesn’t matter. Broadies are known for their love of TFA. Miles may be reaching even lower since uncertified teachers do not require a college degree.

Houston ISD is seeking board approval this month for a waiver from the Texas Education Agency to hire uncertified deans and assistant principals for the next three years.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – April 17, 2023

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"...Over the same time period as this stunning increase in voucher spending, Indiana decreased its per-pupil funding for public education by 1.5 percent...

"...Indiana retreated significantly in its commitment to public education at the same time it substantially increased its funding of private schooling..." -- PFPS Report: The Fiscal Consequences of Private School Vouchers

HOOSIER REPUBLICANS TAKE AIM AT LIBRARIANS AND LIBRARIES

Hoosier librarians step up

Indiana Republican legislative supermajority opened a new front in its apparent constant war against public education. This year they followed the lead of other Republican-led states and included censorship in their agenda. Fortunately, Indiana's librarians spoke up.

From School Matters

Hat’s off to Indiana’s librarians. They turned out in force last week when legislators considered making it easier to ban books and prosecute people who provide material that’s “harmful to minors.” And they pushed back when lawmakers suggested they didn’t know what they were saying.

But it may not matter. The legislation is on the agenda again today for a meeting of the House Education Committee, and Republicans on the panel seem determined to pass it into law.

...The amendment would require school libraries to compile lists of all their books and materials, post them online, and print them out for parents or others who request hard copies. They would also have to create and publicize a procedure for members of the public to seek to remove books from libraries. That seems heavy-handed and unnecessary, but school libraries can probably manage it. Most have computerized inventories that could be used to satisfy the law.

...But Cash’s amendment would remove the educational purpose defense. And it would eliminate the “scope of employment” defense for school and public libraries and their employees. It would retain the scope of employment defense for university, college and museum libraries.

In other words, it would make it easier for a politically ambitious prosecutor to convict a school or public librarian on a felony charge. No wonder librarians are alarmed.

Indiana House committee abandons contentious library materials amendment — for now

Rep. Bob Behning, former florist turned school choice entrepreneur, and no friend of public education made it clear that librarians and libraries are still not safe.

From the Indiana Capital Chronicle

A hotly-debated amendment that sought to ban materials deemed “harmful to minors” in school and public libraries stalled Monday, following hours of opposition testimony the week prior.

The House Education Committee did not vote on the amendment on Monday. Instead, lawmakers voted 12-0 to send the watered down bill, which deals with graduation rates, to the full House.

The amendment could still resurface on the House floor, however.

The proposal under consideration was similar to the controversial Senate Bill 12. But rather than hearing that measure, House lawmakers considered inserting similar provisions into Senate Bill 380.

Committee chairman Rep. Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis, did not comment directly when asked by the Indiana Capital Chronicle about the decision not to vote on the amendment, but he said such language will “likely” be up for debate again in the full chamber.

“The issue is not done yet,” he said.

THE TRUE COST OF VOUCHERS

The Fiscal Consequences of Private School Vouchers

This report focuses on the real impact that seven state voucher programs have on public education. The states highlighted are Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

From Public Funds Public Schools, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Education Law Center

Conclusion

The pattern of education spending in these seven voucher states is unmistakable. Private school voucher programs are initially proposed as limited in size and scope, then grow as existing programs are expanded, and/or additional voucher programs are established. This results in greater and greater amounts of public funding diverted to private educational institutions and private corporations. At the same time, as noted, funding for public schools in these states has largely decreased.

Although direct cause and effect is difficult to prove, the bottom line is clear: As states transfer millions of dollars to private hands, there are fewer available state resources for projects that serve the public good, from mass transit to public parks, libraries, and schools.

INDIANA'S REPUBLICAN-SPONSORED TEACHER SHORTAGE CONTINUES

Who will teach Indiana's children? Hard to attract, retain teachers in current climate

The shortsighted goal seems always to have been the destruction of public education and the teaching profession.

From the Indy Star

According to a Chalkbeat study analyzing teacher turnover data from eight states, the teacher shortage remains, and it is getting worse. Rising teacher turnover rates and growing shortages put the quality of our children’s education at risk.

The teaching profession is bleeding qualified teachers, and our children are suffering. If we want to save the teaching profession, and by extension, our children’s education, we need to reduce the bureaucratic workload on teachers, set aside damaging political battles and require all educators to come to the classroom with appropriate training and certification.

Legislators act to help schools find the right kinds of teachers, staff

We're glad that this Republican-sponsored bill makes sure that school children are safe from possibly dangerous adults, but taking credit for "broadening the pool of available teachers" after spending a decade trying to destroy the teaching profession strikes us as just a bit hypocritical.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

State lawmakers have taken action on two education bills within the past week. One could broaden the pool of available teachers. The other is intended to restrict school districts from hiring instructors and other staff convicted of certain felonies.

House Bill 1528, authored by state Rep. Dave Heine, R-Fort Wayne, expands eligibility to the Next Generation Hoosier Educators Program to include those participating in transition-to-teaching programs and alternative teacher certification programs. It also moves the annual scholarship amount allowed to $10,000 per individual, with a maximum single- year state expenditure of $1 million.

Heine’s bill heads to Gov. Eric Holcomb’s desk after winning unanimous support from the full Senate on Tuesday.

Currently, high school and college students interested in a career in education may earn a renewable scholarship of up to $7,500 each academic year. In exchange, students agree to teach for five years at an eligible Indiana school or repay the scholarship.

In fiscal year 2022, there were around 650 scholarship recipients with a mean award of about $7,300 each, for a total annual expenditure of $4.8 million, according to the Legislative Services Agency.

Indiana State Teachers Association President Keith Gambill said the scholarship program is a justified measure for the legislature to pass to attract more people to the teaching profession.

NACS BUILDING PLANS

Architects shape Northwest Allen County Schools building plans with input, site visits

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Site visits and stakeholder meetings are helping officials shape plans for Northwest Allen County Schools building projects proposed as solutions to overcrowding, an administrator told the district’s elected leaders Monday.

“I really believe we’ve got three great architect firms working for us right now,” said Brandon Bitting, assistant superintendent for operations and safety.

The 8,200-student district is preparing to build a new middle school and to renovate and expand the high school because a demographer told NACS last fall to expect enrollment to increase by more than 800 in the next decade.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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