Latest news with #SchoolDistrict131
Chicago Tribune
11-05-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
East Aurora's David Ballard recognized for work as school administrator at annual Kane County education awards
David Ballard, East Aurora School District 131's associate superintendent of staff and student services, was recently recognized for his work as a school administrator by the Kane County Regional Office of Education. Along with other teachers and staff from districts in the county, Ballard, supported by family and district employees, received an award by the county Regional Office of Education on May 2 at the Q Center in St. Charles, according to a press release from the Kane County Regional Office of Education. The Kane County Educator of the Year Awards are a reminder of 'what is worth advocating for in education,' Regional Superintendent for Kane County Patricia Dal Santo said in the office's news release. Nominations for the award, the press release said, are reviewed by a group of student teachers, retired teachers, university representatives, business representatives, national board certified teachers and Kane County Regional Office of Education staff members. Gemma Gurney of Central High School, part of Central Unit School District 301, took the top award, while a number of other teachers and staff — from districts in Aurora, Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles and more — also went home with awards. Ballard has worked in education for 30 years, he said, and spent 13 of those years at East Aurora. He previously worked as a principal at Johnson Elementary and Fred Rodgers Magnet Academy, as well as served as the district's executive director of secondary education. Now, as the associate superintendent of staff and student services, Ballard oversees the district's human resources department and student services, which includes special education and related services. A lot of his work involves recruitment, hiring and retention of teachers and other staff, he said. But his team also, for example, helped plan a district-level awards event held on May 8 that recognized staff members and retirees. The team Ballard oversees put together a book with recommendation letters from teachers, staff, parents and students that was submitted to the Kane County Regional Office of Education as part of his nomination. He said it was emotional to read the letters written in support of him. 'I think I got about halfway through and I was getting a little choked up, and another administrator came and knocked on my office (door),' he recalled. 'I said, 'Oh, thank you, gosh, I'm glad you're here … I was about to just break down.' And he said letters from students from his time as a principal stood out. 'I always tried to be visible as a principal,' Ballard told The Beacon-News on Friday. 'I never wanted them to view having to come to the principal or talk to the principal as being a bad thing.' Nominees for the Regional Office of Education awards at East Aurora are collected via an internal, anonymous vote, according to district officials. A committee within the district determines one person to be nominated for each award category, which is then submitted by the HR department to the Kane County Regional Office of Education. But, though his team is responsible for submitting the nominations, Ballard didn't know that he would be chosen by the Regional Office of Education this year, and said he was surprised when his name was called. Ballard was not the only nominee from East Aurora — three teachers and two other staff members were also nominated for different categories, according to the Kane County ROE's website. Now, his work in the district will continue on as usual — if not busier, Ballard said, noting that the end of the school year and summer are the busiest times for recruiting and hiring staff for the coming school year. And, as he works with his team on hiring for next year, among other responsibilities, Ballard noted that his win this year was a recognition of a group effort. 'I didn't feel it was just my award,' he said on Friday. 'I felt it was something that recognized all of us collectively.'
Chicago Tribune
09-05-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
East Aurora District 131 to turn two elementary school classrooms into center for students new to the United States
Imagine you're an elementary school student new to your school district — and to the United States — and you hear the fire alarm go off during your first week of school. Do you know what to do and where to go? Do you know who your teacher is well enough to locate them amid the shuffle as your fellow students evacuate the building? If not, how do you ask, especially if you haven't learned English yet? These are the kinds of situations teachers at East Aurora School District 131 presented to district officials about the challenges of acclimating students who are new to the United States into their classrooms, explained Rita Guzman, the district's executive director of language acquisition and early learning. And these challenges, Guzman said, are what East Aurora's new International Newcomer Center is meant to address. The goal is for students in the program, set to begin next fall, to get a crash course in English skills and knowledge of how the school district operates before joining their grade-level peers at their assigned district school. Classroom teachers may not have the language skills to communicate with these students everything they need to know — or they may not even know what new students don't know, said Ami Engel, the district's assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessments. 'They (teachers) just don't necessarily know where the gap might be,' Engel said. 'Some other places have fire alarms that sound similar to ours, others are completely different. So, we just don't know exactly what they're coming in with in terms of knowledge about our systems in the United States and in the education system here in District 131.' The idea for a newcomer center at East Aurora was first presented at the school board's curriculum meeting in December, Engel said. In April, Guzman gave a presentation to the board about how it would work, and Engel presented the program again on Monday, the district's new board president Juan Sifuentes noted at Monday's board meeting. Per a presentation for the school board by Guzman and Engel, the criteria for students to be placed in the newcomer center are: being born outside of the U.S., speaking a language other than English or Spanish at home, having spent less than 90 days enrolled in any U.S. school and a WIDA screener score (an English proficiency test by the University of Wisconsin-Madison) of below 3.0. The program will be open to students in grades 1-5, Guzman said. The center will be housed in two classrooms at Bardwell Elementary, which Guzman noted is across from the district's administrative building, making it easier for the district to show new families their students' schools. Students in first and second grade will learn in one classroom, and students in third through fifth grade in the other. This sort of program is new to East Aurora, according to a district spokesperson, but it's not a new idea, Guzman noted. As they designed their proposal, district officials looked to examples in Illinois and beyond. The schedule for East Aurora's proposed program is similar to a regular school day schedule, Guzman said, but it's slightly condensed to account for daytime field trips. Students will visit their home school, the district's presentation to the board said, along with places in the community — the grocery store, library, police and fire stations, etc. Students will participate in the program for 90 days, according to the presentation, but Guzman said it's a 'fluid program,' meaning students can exit the program sooner if they attain English proficiency. After the program, they'll transition to their assigned district schools. And the district doesn't anticipate this transition being a problem, because they will have some class time with students outside the newcomer program, as well as field trips with their home schools, Engel said. Guzman said it's better for acclimation if students start in a small setting and then transition to their regular classroom. According to Engel and Guzman's presentation to the board, there were 49 students this past school year across the district who would have qualified as newcomers for the program — 35 of which were in kindergarten through fifth grade. Enrollment fluctuates year-to-year — and students sometimes arrive mid-year — so the district doesn't know yet how many students will be part of the program next year. Now, the district is moving forward on staffing and logistics as they prepare to open the center next fall. In April, the board approved staffing requests from the district for two teachers for the newcomer center. And at Monday's board meeting, they approved two teacher assistant positions and a facilitator role for the program. Each classroom will have a teacher and a teacher's assistant, Engel said. From there, Guzman said, the district will begin filling those positions, ordering materials and furniture and developing the curriculum as it prepares to begin the program in the fall. mmorrow@
Chicago Tribune
22-04-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
East Aurora renews food service contracts for next school year
On Monday, the East Aurora School District 131 school board approved the renewal of the district's food service provider contracts for next year. The district uses Whitsons Nutrition, a food service management company based in Islandia, New York, to provide meals for all of its elementary schools and for Cowherd Middle School, according to Monday's meeting agenda. They use Sodexo America in North Bethesda, Maryland, to provide meals for the district's middle schools as well as East Aurora High School. This is the first renewal of five one-year agreements the district has entered into with the providers, the district's Chief Financial Officer Michael Engel said at Monday's meeting. All meal prices will be raised by 3%, according to the contract renewal agreements with the two providers. Per a memo from Engel to the district superintendent, increases may not exceed the Consumer Price Index-Food Away from Home rate, which is currently 3.6%. For example, Whitsons' price for breakfast will increase from $2.42 to $2.49, and lunch will increase from approximately $4 to $4.11, according to the contract. For Sodexo, breakfast will increase from approximately $2.20 to $2.27, and lunch will go from roughly $4.22 to $4.34, as outlined in the contract approved Monday. The contracts were approved unanimously at the meeting, with board member Bruce Schubert absent. District Superintendent Robert Halverson was also absent Monday. East Aurora participates in the Community Eligibility Program, according to the district website, a meal-pricing option that's part of the National School Lunch program. The program allows school districts with high poverty levels to serve breakfast and lunch to all students without collecting household applications, according to the USDA. After paying for the meals, the district is '100% reimbursed by the USDA, by the federal government, for (the) breakfast, lunch, supper and snack program throughout the district,' according to Engel. The reimbursement rates for the next fiscal year have not yet been released, according to Engel's memo, but the reimbursement rate this past school year for districts with high need was $4.54 for lunch and $2.84 for breakfast, according to the Illinois State Board of Education — meaning next year's rates for both food service companies fall below those rates. Both contracts note, however, that prices must be quoted 'as if no USDA commodities will be received.' And, with the possibility of funding cuts to schools by President Donald Trump's administration, the future of some federal funding remains uncertain. For example, in March, the United States Department of Agriculture said it was ending two pandemic-era programs that provided over $1 billion for schools and food banks to purchase food from local farmers. The Local Food for Schools program represented more than half of that money. The Illinois State Board of Education had signed an agreement in January to continue the Local Food for Schools program, but is now set to lose that funding after Jan. 31, 2026, the state board said in March. Later in March, Trump signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the Department of Education. But, while the extent to which possible Trump administration cuts to USDA funding for school meals or the Department of Education comes to bear on East Aurora and other school districts remains to be seen, District 131 said they do not anticipate any interruptions to school meal funding for the 2025-26 year, a district spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday. 'There has been some governmental, kind of, changes within (the USDA commodities), that they're sometimes on the table, off the table, but for next year, we're still going forward,' Engel said at Monday's meeting. 'I can't guess or foresee what the U.S. government's going to do in fiscal year (2027) coming up after that, but as of right now we are planning to use the USDA commodities going forward.'
Chicago Tribune
26-03-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Five years since start of pandemic, Aurora school districts talk technology, mental health and lessons learned
When students showed up to their junior year English class at East Aurora High School remotely in the fall of 2020, their teacher, Melinda Thomas, had not met them face-to-face. The seniors she'd met the year before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this group of students was new to her. As the year went on, she continued to face obstacles getting face-to-face interaction with her students. 'A lot of students were either reluctant to turn on their cameras or, for various reasons, you know, maybe their technology didn't allow them to turn on the cameras,' Thomas recalled. She said sometimes she would work one-on-one with a student and ask them a question, and they would type a response instead of answer out loud – sometimes because their microphone didn't work, and sometimes because they didn't want to speak in the remote class. Even when her school returned to in-person instruction, Thomas said it was difficult to communicate with students without seeing their facial expressions and difficult to convey her own emotions as she wore a mask herself. Those days are over now, but some of the difficulties still persist, Thomas said. She said she sees more social anxiety and mental health issues in her classrooms, which she attributes to both the pandemic and to an increased prevalence of technology use. She still has trouble getting students to participate like they used to. 'We've always had students who said, 'I don't want to work in groups,'' Thomas said. 'That's not new. But, having students who won't talk to anyone else in the room, that's more unusual.' A lot has changed in the five years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Life has largely returned to normal, as has classroom instruction in local schools. But, in many ways – from technology use to student mental health – Aurora-area districts say the pandemic forced great change in their schools, and accelerated changes that were already underway. Technology was one of the first major shifts. To adapt to the district's remote learning policies, which lasted from the start of the pandemic to the following spring, East Aurora School District 131 had to rapidly play catch-up on technology access. The district scrambled to get computers out to all middle school and high school students, said Jennifer Norrell, who was superintendent of the district through the pandemic up until earlier this month. Unlike some nearby districts, students didn't have 1:1 access to a district-provided computer. East Aurora gave out physical packets of classwork to elementary school students, Norrell said. Federal pandemic relief funding not used for health and sanitation measures in the district immediately went toward buying iPads for elementary school students. The district also began using Google Workspace, a system the district continues to use, according to Andrew Allen, East Aurora's executive director of information systems. 'Normally, that's kind of a slower rollout,' Norrell said of the transition, saying that the district would have ordinarily done a smaller pilot of the technology if it weren't for the pandemic. 'But, I mean, we couldn't. … That was the only way for them to teach with the kids.' They also provided hotspots to students without reliable home internet access, another school policy that has continued, Allen said. East Aurora's enrollment is roughly 12,000, down about 1,000 students since the start of the pandemic, according to data from the Illinois State Board of Education. Allen said just over 3% of students still use hotspots to complete their coursework at home. At Indian Prairie School District 204, families were encouraged to enroll in T-Mobile's Project 10Million, which provides free internet to students, according to Rod Mack, the district's chief technology officer. Now, the district pays for a number of hotspots that students can use if they don't have reliable internet access at home. Indian Prairie had recently shifted to 1:1 computer access before the pandemic, so they didn't have to make a total technology overhaul, Mack noted. But they have since moved to primarily submitting assignments online, Mack noted, a shift that might have had a greater impact on the staff than the students. 'Teachers learned that on the dime,' Mack told The Beacon-News. 'Students kind of grew up with it.' He said his office devoted considerable time to helping teachers learn how to use technology for remote teaching – instruction that also had to be done virtually. Zoom, for example, was updated with new tools constantly, Mack said, which required teachers to learn new functionalities for remote classes. Now that schools continue to use this technology, it can be used on an as-needed basis, noted the Indian Prairie Parents' Council, which oversees the district's Parent Teacher Associations and Parent Teacher Student Associations. It means the end-of-year school calendar is 'not as fluid as it used to be,' the Indian Prairie Parents' Council said in a statement to The Beacon-News, because snow days can be conducted remotely. But the downside is kids may not get to experience a true 'snow day,' they noted. During the COVID-19 pandemic, school districts across the country received federal money from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, which is commonly referred to as ESSER funding, to help them operate during the pandemic. At Indian Prairie, the first installment of that funding went toward cleaning and social distancing efforts, said the district's Chief School Business Official Matthew Shipley. Subsequent waves of federal funding went to capital projects and additional programming to support student learning for the more than 25,000 students in the district, according to data from ISBE. The district received around $13 million from 2021-2024, Shipley said, but it had to be spent by Sept. 30, 2024. 'There was always a challenge of, 'How do we provide programming that addresses, that directly addresses, the concerns we're having coming out of the COVID period – so, the specific learning recovery that needed to be accomplished – but also recognizing these funds were temporary,' Shipley said. Indian Prairie reduced class sizes in kindergarten through second grade, for example, by hiring about 20 teachers across the district, Shipley said. Although the pandemic-era federal funding has run out, the district decided to continue with these class sizes using local funds to pay for the additional staff. They also added summer school and after-school programs to catch students up academically to account for interruptions in learning from the pandemic, and offered 'take-home tote bags' for elementary school students over the summer with books, arts supplies and math resources. Those programs won't continue now that the COVID funds have expired. West Aurora School District 129 also instituted new programming to address learning challenges during the pandemic, according to a district spokesperson. They created a supplemental program called Success Through Academic Recovery for high school students, offer small-group virtual tutoring and provide supplemental instruction in reading and math through an online program called iReady. East Aurora, too, implemented summer school programs and new curriculum initiatives, Norrell said. They also used pandemic funds to build a new facility at their old district office called the Resilience Education Center. It opened in March 2024, according to the district. It has mental health counseling with social workers and clinicians, career programming – including a recording studio and broadcast journalism studio – and art and physical wellness offerings. Norrell said the district was deliberate in using pandemic funding toward long-term investments like capital projects and training for teaching staff. 'By doing that … we were able to make sure that when the money went away, we didn't have to change gears,' Norrell said. Instead of having to add a significant number of new staff, for example, Norrell said the district provided training to classroom staff to support student well-being. 'We needed everybody to be a social worker, so to speak,' Norrell said about the training given to teachers during the COVID period and the district's attempts to avoid what she called an 'intervention cliff.' At East Aurora High School, the district also instituted 15-minute office hours in the morning once learning resumed in a hybrid format, according to Jonathan Simpson, who was the principal of East Aurora High School during the pandemic and now works as the principal of Allen Elementary. During office hours, students could get one-on-one academic help, talk to their social worker or speak with a coach or other staff member. Addressing mental health challenges was top-of-mind for the districts, officials said, and a lasting legacy of the pandemic. Indian Prairie recently began offering free after-school counseling via a grant from Endeavor Health, Shipley said. Last year, West Aurora opened the Jeff Craig Family Resource Center, which provides physical and mental health services and a small food pantry for its students, in partnership with VNA Health Care. They are also in their third year of having 'restorative practice counselors,' who help with handling disciplinary issues and conflict resolution in the district, a district spokesperson said. The causes of student mental health concerns upon returning to in-person classes were wide-ranging, Norrell said. Not only did students miss out on a year of socializing with their peers, some had lost loved ones to COVID and others had family who lost work. 'There was so much social-emotional wellness … that was equal to what we experienced in terms of learning loss,' Norrell said. She also noted the impact of racial tensions in 2020 following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. 'That too was a huge part of the trauma.' Nevertheless, officials at East Aurora said the return to in-person learning was a formative memory. Former East Aurora High School principal Simpson said the 2021 graduation – which the district held outside at Northern Illinois University's football field to comply with COVID restrictions – was a notable turning point in the return to normal. 'I can't even begin to describe it in words,' Simpson said. 'It will be an image I remember forever.' Still, despite COVID-era programs and changes, some of which have continued through today, some issues have persisted. Thomas, who continues to teach English at East Aurora High School, said distraction during class and attention span remains a problem in her classroom. 'We've always struggled with, 'OK, we're going to assign this book, and what do we do with the kids that don't read it?'' Thomas said. 'But, now, it's, it's almost like, 'OK, we're starting on the assumption that almost nobody is going to read it? So, how do we teach it instead?'' Thomas said teachers will sometimes show movies to accompany the books they read, or break up class time into multiple segments to keep students' attention, or do close readings of sections of books. But it's not all due to the pandemic, she said. 'COVID exacerbated a lot of issues that we were already beginning to see,' she said. 'COVID sped up the process.' But some district officials say the pandemic has offered some valuable lessons in adapting to technology – and adapting in general. Mack said he doesn't think school districts would have been ready for the explosion of AI use otherwise. 'If AI happened before a pandemic, teachers would be like, 'Turn the internet off … I'm not ready to handle this,'' Mack said. Going forward, the districts hope they'll be able to continue adapting, no matter what uncertainty they face. 'I think COVID taught us some valuable lessons,' Shipley said. 'Pivoting, and being flexible and ensuring we were able to meet the needs of our students and our families. … Hopefully, we kind of take some of (those) lessons learned and take some of that spirit, if you will, that allowed us to function during that time.'
