Different Day, Same Struggles
If pollsters were to examine all the recent activity surrounding the new Dennis School issue, I imagine the resulting data would be enough to occupy the punditry for an entire hour on any one of today’s cable news analysis programs. If aliens would have landed in Decatur over the past few weeks, I am sure they would have been mesmerized by the amount of passionate, and sometime argumentative, debate surrounding the mere thought of building a new elementary school in an existing park.
One can only hope that this level of concern could be given to the other critical issues we face while educating the students in District 61.
According to a statement from Decatur Public School District #61, as of July 26th the district is no longer moving forward with the proposed plan to build a new facility in Lincoln Park. As outlined in DPS61’s communique, the Decatur Park District decided not to sell the land to the school district which, by default, squashes the current plans. Yet, district leadership is still committed to finding a path forward to build a new building to bring the
two (2) Dennis programs under one roof.
Regardless, the calendar marches along and the 2022-23 school year is set to begin with staff returning to the buildings August 11th & students returning Monday, August 15th. And with the launch of a new school year, the reality facing DPS61 remains the same. It is one fraught with declining enrollment, staff shortages and lackluster test scores. ESSR funds or not, these issues need to be addressed.
Enrollment
Like it or not, the enrollment in District 61 is declining. The chart below shows the downward trend.
As stated in a previous article, Decatur’s enrollment dropped 4 % from 2015 to 2020; then from 2020 to 2022, we experienced another 5.5% drop (482 students) in enrollment. If you look at recent census data, one would think you could tie this into the overall decline in population in Macon County (110.7K in 2010 vs. 103.9K in 2020). However, as we have pointed out in earlier articles on The DPS Chalkboard, Decatur enrollment is dropping while the other districts in the county have remained basically unchanged. In fact, the private schools in Decatur are seeing increased numbers of new students & are clamoring to hire new teachers.
Staffing Issues
Staff shortages have been a challenge in the past, and there is nothing on the horizon to indicate that it will get better any time soon. The shortage in teachers impacts each and every school district across the country. This certainly does not bode well when you consider that students will arrive soon. According to the Illinois Report Card, teacher retention at DPS61 now stands just over 68%. The state average is 87%. As of August 8, 2022, the district’s website shows the following number of job openings/postings:
We realize that every district faces these challenges, but it does not mean they are insurmountable. We here at DPS Chalkboard have outlined before how the CARES money could help in this area. It would require hard work and a great deal of effort, but when did anything that was worthwhile ever come easy? In fact, to help stretch the out the available funding, the district could re-assign both the Director of Communications and Director of Community Engagement to assist the HR department in this endeavor. In our proposal, we felt it would be necessary to hire consultants to launch a major teacher recruitment effort, so who better to promote & sell the benefits of DPS61 to potential teachers than those two individuals.
Test Scores
Lastly, one of the more difficult challenges ahead of us are the dismal test scores. This is the proverbial elephant in the room and there is really no good way to present them. That being said, we will just put them out here and let them speak for themselves. We have two charts for you: 1) Meets and Exceeds Standards, 3rd grade thru 8th grade, for DPS61, and 2) Meets and Exceeds Standards (High School) for DPS 61 and the surrounding districts.
Please note: this data reflects 2019 results that have been reported to the Illinois Report Card. The results from 2020 are not listed as reporting was exempted due to the pandemic, and we can only imagine how dismal the results could be from the 2021/22 tests.
Again, these are vexing and difficult problems for any school district, not just District 61. When the district’s current strategic plan was adopted in 2018, their mission statement referred to Decatur Public Schools as “the destination district in our community”. One could make the case that current data dispels that notion.
All of these factors present serious challenges for district leadership, members of the board and the citizens of Decatur. There’s a great deal of factors that influence these numbers, most of them being of a socioeconomic in nature. As such, it is going to be difficult for school officials make any substantial changes.
In his book Good to Great (the “go-to” manuscript of the Gloria Davis era), Jim Collins hammers home the notion of confronting “brutal facts” and having “the courage to face reality.” Perhaps it is time to take that book from the shelf and dust it off? The reality of the situation is that this trend is not going to reverse itself anytime soon.
Nearly a century ago a theologian recommended to “take this world as it is, not as I would have it.” While it sounds defeatist to say we need to focus on managing the decline, the truth is that we, as a community, need to put our best effort into making the most of what we have in the school district in order to promote student achievements and create an environment where teachers can thrive.