Des Moines Schools Miss Out on Grant Incentives (IA)
August 23, 2010
Three of Des Moines’ neediest high schools will have to scale back or delay plans to improve student results in the classroom because they were unable to secure federal grant money to fund their efforts.
Officials with the Iowa Department of Education, charged with distributing nearly $18 million in three-year school improvement grants to persistently low-achieving buildings, divvied up the funds between six schools that it considered high priority because of the large number of poor students they serve. Among the buildings were four Des Moines schools: Edmunds Elementary School, Hoyt and Weeks middle schools and North High School.
East, Hoover and Lincoln high schools applied for more than a combined $10.3 million in grants to pay for additional staff, improved technology, incentives to recruit and retain staff, classroom supplies and teacher training. They lost out on the money, along with five other persistently low-achieving schools, because money ran out.
"We were disappointed our Tier Two schools weren’t funded," said Nancy Sebring, Des Moines superintendent. "We went to a lot of work hiring support staff and changing leadership and working with teams and the (Des Moines Education Association) to put together these plans and submit them. But, in the long run, we are not complaining."
State officials group Iowa’s 35 persistently low-achieving schools into two categories: Tier One and Tier Two. Tier One schools receive Title I dollars for their low-income students and are considere d high-priority. Tier Two schools are middle and high schools, such as East, Hoover and Lincoln, that do not receive the extra money. Only 14 of the 35 schools that were eligible for the school improvement grants applied.
Des Moines’ four Tier One schools initially requested a combined $18.4 million to pay for their reform plans, which included expenses similar to those at East, Hoover and Lincoln. The state awarded Edmunds, Hoyt, Weeks and North $13.3 million, because it didn’t have the money to fund the full amount.
The four schools each requested $4.6 million. State officials cut the funding at Hoyt and Weeks by 26 percent; the funding for North and Edmunds was reduced 18 percent and 39 percent, respectively. The state based its final funding on each school’s enrollment and the number of low-income students served.
The loss of money means the following for those schools:
• Money for teacher training and incentives to lure staff to work at the schools and retain them suffered the deepest cuts. In most cases, dollars were cut in about half in those two areas.
• Classroom supplies, such as library books and science lab equipment, and technology had the smallest reductions. Technology purchases included items such as laptop computers, interactive whiteboards and graphing calculators.
• Money for additional staff, such as school improvement leaders and teachers for academic labs, was cut by 25 percent or more at each school. However, the district added the staff earlier this year and paid for them by eliminating other positions, Sebring said.
"There are a lot of reform efforts they have going that they were anxious to get started on, and they still have a lot in those plans," said Paul Cahill, Title I director at the Iowa Department of Education.
Tier Two schools that did not receive school improvement funds are not required to implement the reforms they outlined in their grant applications, Cahill said. Des Moines officials, however, say they will still move forward with portions of their plans.
East, Lincoln and Hoover already receive money each year earmarked for teacher training. School officials can divert that money and use it to train teachers in reform initiatives.
Staff for academic labs, which provide students with tutoring, have already been hired. The district also selected school improvement leaders who will help coach and evaluate teachers and work with students and families.
Teachers will also be able to attend professional development at Tier One district schools that were funded.
"They will continue to implement their improvement efforts, but without the resources it will not be at the same scale or pace," said Kris Mesicek, a grant writer for the district.
However, the Tier Two schools will have to do without incentives for staff and the addition of millions of dollars in updated technology and classroom supplies. Students will have less access to multi-language books and expanded libraries, as well as opportunities such as after-school tutoring, officials said.
"Money is always a problem," said Joan Roberts, interim principal at Lincoln. "But schools don’t succeed or fail because they don’t have enough professional development money. They fail because they don’t have a clear understanding of what it is that they want to do or how to do it or they don’t follow through on what they said they were going to do."