By DAVE FOPAY, Staff Writer

CHARLESTON -- The fact that there’s no longer an elementary school in Lerna didn’t prevent the school district from getting a grant based partly on student performance there.

The Illinois State Board of Education announced that the district will receive an $11,000 grant that can be used for supplementary teaching or computer technology materials. The grant was based on the Lerna school’s performance on state tests during the 2004-2005 school year and the number of low income students at the school.

The district closed Lerna Elementary School at the end of that school year, but the grant “goes with the children, essentially,” said Meta Minton, ISBE spokeswoman. That means the grant money will go to the schools that the Lerna students now attend, Carl Sandburg and Jefferson elementary schools.

School district Superintendent Gary Niehaus said a “big factor” in the district receiving the grant was the improvements the Lerna school made in its state test scores last year over the year before. He credited teachers Brenda Paxton and Sue Dunifer, now at Carl Sandburg, and Katie Niemerg, now at Jefferson, for the improvements.

“Those three are responsible for the last set of test scores out there,” Niehaus said.

On the 2004-2005 Illinois Standards Achievement Test, 87.5 percent of Lerna students met or exceeded state grade level learning standards for the tests’ subjects, reading and math. The year before, Lerna’s mark was 69.4 percent.

The ISBE announcement said a school also had to have at least 50 percent of its students meet low-income guidelines to qualify for the grant. Nearly 52 percent of Lerna’s students met the income requirements last year.

Niehaus noted that academic performance wasn’t a factor in the school board’s decision to close the Lerna school.

“We didn’t have the students needed to make that a financially viable option,” he said.

The school had about 45 students at the end of the last school year, and Niehaus said at the time that about 20 students per grade level, or about 80 in all, would have been necessary to justify keeping the school open.

The Lerna school was one of nine in the state and the only one in the area to qualify for a grant, according to the ISBE. The announcement said the grant is funded from federal money under the No Child Left Behind law, which requires schools to make progress, on which Illinois bases the ISAT scores.

Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 348-5733.

Published on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 10:47 PM CDT
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