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District 205 to Taxpayers: Educating Kids Not As Expensive As You Think
FIRST REPORTED 3:00pm 8/10/10 The Galesburg School District says there's plenty of work to do, but they say the public -- and especially taxpayers -- need to know that the district's children are doing extremely well on state tests, at a cost they say may be surprising.

District-205 Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Joel Estes told the school board Monday that every single kindergarten through eighth grade building in the district made Adequate Yearly Progress under the Federal No Child Left Behind Act.

But why do taxpayers need to know that? Estes says despite persistent internet message board-based complaints that District-205 spends too much money especially on administrators, it's not nearly as much as other districts of comparable size.

"District 205, of this list of comparable school districts (seen below in this story), has -- by far -- the lowest operating expenditure by pupil," Estes said. "A full $5,000 less than Urbana, and the next closest school district to ours is $8,500 per student."

District 205, Estes says, spends only about $7,300 per student. He says given that, student achievement is "remarkably high."

He also says the pupil-to-staff ratio is the 5th lowest in his list of similar-sized schools, but that will go up next year because one administrator was reduced in a recent round of budget alterations.


(Graphic used by the Galesburg School District in a presentation to the board Monday night.)
08 11 10 by Newsroom
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