Kathryn Fernandez attended traditional schools while growing up, but as a parent, she jumped at the chance to let her children experience something different: an elementary school campus where multi-age classrooms, theme-based teaching and 10-page report cards are the norm.
For Fernandez, the school’s genuine support of parental involvement was exciting. Unlike other schools, she said, teachers at Lincoln Prairie School in Hoffman Estates greeted her warmly, any time, any day, and put her to work in the classroom.
“In every way that I thought possible, I have been happy,” Fernandez said of the Hoffman Estates school, where her children are in kindergarten and 5th grade. “They make you feel very much a part of the educational process.”
Schaumburg School District 54 opened Lincoln Prairie in August 1999, as its first “school of choice,” where parents throughout the district enroll their children using a lottery system, implemented because of Lincoln Prairie’s limited space.
Across the northwest suburbs, school officials are testing the waters for interest in theme-based or non-traditional schools, buoyed by a nationwide clamor for more choices in education. In some states, parents and politicians have pushed for vouchers or tuition tax credits so more pupils can afford private schools.
In Illinois, the legislature has approved charter schools–which are exempt from many state regulations–with the intention of encouraging innovative teaching methods.
Public school officials, taking note of the political winds, are scrambling to gauge the desires of their communities.
“We want to offer our parents more choice,” said Terri McHugh, spokeswoman for District 54, who said the idea for Lincoln Prairie sprang from an education conference several years ago.
The school, which this fall will offer programs for 320 children from infancy through 8th grade, is filled to capacity, Principal Jan Jetel said. The curricula range in scope from an early childhood program to the Family Involvement Nurturing Development Program, which supports parents to nurture their child’s development, to classes designed around individual learning styles, which rely on spatial, musical or interpersonal skills for success. Report cards include traditional letter grades, but also list academic skills and behavioral expectations, which are flagged to reflect whether a child has mastered them.
The classroom’s hands-on lessons “position [children] more for lifelong learning,” said Fernandez. “My hope is the high schools will catch up with this way of learning.”
This fall, District 54 also plans to open enrollment to district residents at MacArthur and Enders-Salk Schools, both of which will offer a dual language program that allows Spanish-speaking pupils to learn English and English-speaking pupils to learn Spanish, beginning in kindergarten.
At Dirksen Elementary, every classroom will adhere to the multi-age philosophy, which groups younger pupils with older ones. Neighborhood residents are given priority when enrolling at each school; others are chosen from throughout the district through a lottery.
Other popular schools of choice are Iroquois School in Des Plaines and Lincoln School in Mundelein. Both offer a year-round calendar, as well.
Elsewhere in the northwest suburbs, parents are less enthused about opening new schools. In Elk Grove Township School District 59, officials are trying to stir interest in Ridge Family Center, a school of choice that is scheduled to open in fall 2001. Ridge Family will feature a non-traditional school year, a strong family component with extended day and evening events, a full-day kindergarten and emphasis on teaching children to solve real-life problems.
Yet, “the response to date has been very light,” said District 59 Supt. Robert Howard, who has mailed brochures to residents describing the program. He will poll families next fall to measure interest.
“For so long we were talking about conceptual ideas without defining [them],” he said. “Quite honestly, if there’s not interest, I don’t expect the program will be operated.”
Township High School District 211 received an even cooler reception last fall, when it solicited community opinion on whether the district should open its own charter school. The board formed a committee that researched various charter schools, which often are academic- or vocational-themed, then asked for opinions in area newspapers and newsletters.
Only five people responded to the opinion poll. Four were opposed to the idea, saying the district should focus on doing a better job financing the schools that already exist. The one in favor sent a two-sentence e-mail summarized with, “It allows you the freedom to think outside the box.”
A charter school, while approved by the District 211 Board, would authorize a separate board of directors to oversee its operations.
Art Goes, 53, the owner of a software company in Palatine, was among those opposed, even though he threw his support behind the early efforts of a small parent group seeking to open the Thomas Jefferson Charter School. The elementary school, despite opposition from local school districts, opened last fall and is operating out of a Des Plaines church.
Goes said he wasn’t happy with the elementary schools at the time, but he is pleased with the curriculum choices offered at the secondary level.
Besides, he added, “Having a local school board approve a charter school is like asking the New York Times to decide whether the Wall Street Journal can sell papers in New York city. It’s the fox watching the hen house. The idea is to introduce competition into the equation,” he said.
John Braglia, president of the District 211 Teachers Union, cites community indifference as the reason people are content with the status quo of Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates, Fremd, Conant and Palatine High Schools. Charter schools, he said, were opened to satisfy concerns that surfaced when schools failed to meet community and state expectations.
He fears an attempt to open a charter school would pull the brightest students out of the regular high schools and create an elitist campus.
“There’s a lot incidental learning that takes place,” Braglia said. “A lot of it comes from student to student. Not only are you taking the brightest and best kids and putting them in a private school, but, theoretically, you’re robbing the kids at the average level.”
Charter school advocates, though, say any pressure on school districts to be competitive and accountable benefits the community.
“That would be a very positive effect of charters,” said Jon Schroeder, director of Charter Friends National Network, a private, non-profit organization based in St. Paul. “Rather than have a charter start up, a school district would be more responsive to what parents are asking for.”
NEW TERMS TO LEARN
– Block schedule: Also called “semestering,” block scheduling restructures the secondary school day into fewer and longer class periods, typically four 90-minute periods per day or every other day instead of the usual seven 50-minute segments. Some classes may be compressed into shorter time periods, allowing students to fit in more classes and electives.
– Charter school: A school founded by a local school district, group of school districts or the Illinois State Board of Education, but operated by a separate board of directors with the intent of finding innovative ways to teach children. Charter schools are exempt from many state regulations, but pupils still are required to meet state learning standards and take the same state tests as their peers in traditional schools. Often, these schools are represented as a choice and open to enrollment throughout a school district.
– Dual-language immersion: Pupils who speak two different languages are put together at a young age. Each is taught to speak the other’s language through immersion in the classroom. For example, English-speaking pupils learn Spanish, while Spanish-speaking pupils learn English.
– Looping: A nearly 100-year-old idea that has enjoyed a recent resurgence in popularity, this technique allows a teacher to remain with the same class for two or three years, with the intention of strengthening the teacher-pupil bond and smoothing the transition into a new grade.
– Multi-age classrooms: Pupils from more than one age group, usually in consecutive elementary grades, are taught in the same room. Supporters say younger pupils benefit from having older role models, while the older pupils benefit from helping the younger children. Others argue the grouping is of little or no benefit to the learning process.
– Multiple intelligence: The term refers to the use of a variety of teaching methods and tools to address the multiple ways children learn. The theory includes: using words to accommodate linguistic intelligence; numbers or logic for logical-mathematical intelligence; visuals for spatial intelligence; music for musical intelligence; self-reflection for intrapersonal intelligence; a physical experience for bodily-kinesthetic intelligence; a social experience for interpersonal intelligence; and/or an experience in the natural world for naturalist intelligence.
– Outcome-based education: A national movement to reform school systems by basing success on how well pupils perform based on clearly defined standards for academic achievement. This represents a shift from reforms that measured inputs, such as how much homework is assigned or how much time is spent in the classroom.
– School of choice: Usually refers to a public school that accepts pupils from throughout the district, although those who live within the school’s neighborhood boundaries sometimes are given priority. A lottery system is used to limit total enrollment when demand exceeds capacity. These schools usually offer curricula with a theme or an emphasis that differentiates it from others within the district. The school is required to operate under state regulations.
– Theme-based learning: Teachers use subject-themed content across such disciplines as social studies, math and reading. For example, pupils studying the theme “community,” may read about local history, take a field trip to village hall and use math to figure population demographics.
-Year-round school: A continuous school calendar that usually consists of nine weeks of classes followed by three-week breaks, as well as a six-week summer vacation. Supporters say the shorter summer makes it easier for children to remember what they’ve learned; critics prefer a traditional calendar that allows more flexibility for vacations and summer camps.
