Wilder friends: Money shouldn’t be main issue Grand Forks School Board’s decision to close school
December 12, 2011 at 4:04 pm in Grand Forks Herald
The Near North Neighborhood school has too few studentsEnrollment has shrunk for years, but parents say closing the school would undermine efforts to revitalize the neighborhood. Continue Reading
24 in K…means 51 in Grades 1-5…An average of 10 kiddos per grade? Neighborhood schools are great, but it doesn’t seem to be a very efficient use of taxpayer dollars to keep that school open.
In the interest of neighborhood support, I would personally be ok watching the K enrollment next fall and making a decision for Fall 2013….but I would like to see the expressed dividing line being another class of 20 or more.
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One of the issues with the Wilder numbers is that right now there is no 4th grade. 4 years ago there were not enough kids for a kindergarten class. This missing grade has transitioned up one per year, resulting in no 4th grade class this year. Unfortunately, this also means that younger siblings of these 4th graders are also not attending at Wilder. The demographic shift going on within the Wilder boundaries (a significant increase in houses being bought by younger families and couples from retired individuals and empty-nesters) has been going on for the past several years. This change is now resulting in increased numbers within the school’s lower grades. Once the missing 4th grade is gone in two years, census data shows that the large pool of pre-schoolers within the boundaries should result in more large classes, which will help Wilder’s numbers to rebound. In the interim, the district has 2 classes of Head Start at Wilder (49 students, which are not counted in Wilder’s numbers), for which the district receives a large amount of federal funding.
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just out of curiosity – what does the teacher do for that year that he/she has no class to teach?
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A teacher has been reassigned to another school, actually 2 teachers as the 2nd/3rd grade class is taught as a combination class. Also, the school shares a principal with Winship Elementary. The school is small yet efficient.
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I believe that Wilder shared six staff with Winship [another neighborhood school].
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One of the perceptions is that there are empty classrooms at Wilder not being used. 49 Head Start students are using 2 classrooms not being used for elementary students (these students are not counted toward the 75 Wilder students mentioned). Last year Head Start brought in $6700 in federal funding per student for the district. This translates into $328,000 in federal funds going to the school district from these “empty classrooms”/Head Start students at Wilder. Again, small yet efficient.
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There is a common misperception that Wilder is sitting empty and using up district resources. This is not true. 70% of the district’s budget go to salaries and benefits. Wilder shares a principal, music teacher, physical education teacher, counselor and nurse. There is a missing grade, which obviously does not employ a teacher, and this year the 2nd and 3rd grade classes were merged into a very large combination class, reducing the need for yet another teacher. In addition, there are 49 students in 2 Head Start classrooms at Wilder. Head Start is a federally funded program. If you do the math, these students bring in approximately $6700 a piece in federally funding. Although Head Start is a district program, the numbers of students in Head Start classrooms are not counted in the district’s enrollment numbers because they are pre-K students. This is not an empty school sucking up resources as the district and media would have you believe. There have already been measures taken to increase efficiency at Wilder. The recent turn around in kindergarten numbers and numbers of upcoming preschool children in the area,as indicated by the 2010 census data, may indicate the start of a trend. Time is necessary to see if this is in fact the case, to let the missing grade and its resulting affect on enrollment cycle through, and to combat the pervasive and inaccurate public opinion surrounding this school.
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Keep Wilder open. It’ll fill up again. We also need to address the south end. My kids go to Century, and I am 4 miles away from there. This town is moving south, and there hasn’t been a school built since 1989(Century). If a school was built on the south end, it’d be full the first year. That would help with the over crowded Century/Kelly classrooms now.
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I have noticed many young families moving into the Riverside neighborhood. Many have children who may be attending Wilder school in a few years. Hopefully Wilder will still be open for them. Something needs to be
done to convince the parents living in the Wilder boundries to sent there children to Wilder. I was shocked to learn that half of them sent their children to other schools. Hopefully if these parents learn Wilder may close because of declining enrollment they will help save the school.
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It’s no secret that many parents have strong reservations against a Wilder teacher (in one of the early grades) and would rather send their kids elsewhere. If that teacher were removed, you would likely see enrollment increase quickly.
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As an educator (a professor at UND) and a resident of Riverside Park, I think this issue is too important to decide rashly and with incomplete data. With 2010 census data showing growth on the north end, growing class sizes in the younger grades at Wilder, and efforts and investments underway by the City Council and Parks Dept. to revitalize the Near North neighborhood, forcing a decision by January is incredibly premature. The School Board should table a decision for at least two years until more reliable data is available.
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What needs to be discussed in a public forum is the school district’s transfer policy. It makes no sense that the district would allow overcrowding in some schools and under-enrollment in others. As has already been stated, over 50% of the school-aged children residing in Wilder’s boundaries transfer out to other schools. There is no population shortage in the Near North and Riverside, there is a flawed transfer policy.
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I was under the impression the ELL students were overflowing Century, sounds like Wilder has room.
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Channel 8 News a while back had Jody Thompson stating that the ELL kids were at Century because Century had services that were not available in the other schools such as a full time music teacher and several others that I don’t remember. In other words, the other schools just aren’t good enough, yet parents at Century are worried (and rightly so) that their kids aren’t getting the level of education or attention that they should be due to the overcrowding. Go figure.
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Century parents were also told recently that the school district was looking at moving 1/2 of the ELL students to a different school to alleviate some of the overcrowding and that decision was going to be made by March….
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