PANCAKE
DAY
Iowa City Athletic Booster Club’s 50th Annual Pancake Day is tomorrow, April 12, 2014 at West High from 6:30am-3:00pm. Read the full story on A3.
TheLittleHawk Iowa City High School - Iowa City, Iowa - Volume 71, Issue 5- April 11, 2014 - www.thelittlehawk.com
ICCSD makes tough budget choices
In a growing district, the ICCSD must find ways to reduce expenditures by eliminating teacher positions and reducing all aspects of the budget. By Ellen Carman Eighty percent of the Iowa City Community School District’s budget goes to employing people. Of the money spent on district employees, 80 percent is allocated to teachers and associates working with students. So in order for the district to cut 3.6 million dollars from it’s budget, teacher positions must be cut. Budget cuts have proven to be necessary in order for the ICCSD to align it’s revenue with expenditures. Increased spending in recent years has been necessary due to the addition of 1,000 students to the district in the last three years. It has also been possible thanks to stimulus dollars that came into the district in 2010, 2011, and 2012. The district currently employs approximately 957 teachers. The district plans to cut 10 elementary teacher positions, 20 from secondary schools, and five central administration positions. These cuts will either come from not filling vacant teacher positions left by retiring or resigning teachers or in layoffs. “There have been extensive discussions about how we can adjust pupil teacher ratios to make classes more efficient and those types of things within our teacher ranks,” ICCSD’s Chief Financial Officer, Craig Hansel, said. “That’s where we spend the most money.” Fewer teachers could lead to larger classes sizes and a school’s inability to offer classes previously available. The district has set a guideline of 24 to 32 students per class for schools to try to meet as they plan for the 2014-’15 school year. At City High, adjustments will have to made to compensate for a smaller staffing allocation. This will be achieved by not filling positions of retiring teachers if the given department can still be successful with one less teacher. However, some departments will need to be replenished. The Spanish department will have two teachers retire at the end of this year and part or all of those positions will have to be refilled. “Everyone that is here right now provides an important, valuable service to this high school,” Principal, John Bacon said. “Knowing that we will have a reduction presents challenges.” Challenges that include larger class sizes, but Bacon stresses that class size increases will not be drastic and will remain within the district’s guidelines as frequently as possible. *Continued on A6
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Elizabeth Larsen wins Circumnavigators grant By Ellen Carman This summer, 2012 City High graduate, Elizabeth Larsen will travel around the world stopping in seven countries on a three month journey researching childhood malnutrition. As the winner of Northwestern University’s Circumnavigators Travel Study Grant and a grant from the Northwestern Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Larsen has 12,000 dollars to put towards her research. She will be performing a study she created called “Tackling Childhood Malnutrition: A global study of channeling grassroots approaches to catalyze world change.” Larsen was inspired to focus on grassroots efforts to prevent childhood malnutrition from her work at GlobeMed’s national office in Chicago. GlobeMed is an organization that pairs university chapters with a global partner. Each
year students fundraise and raise awareness saw how grassroots efforts like Premios Pasos about their partner’s work. Then, in the summer are effective. This non-profit clinic has a nutriinterns go abroad to work with their partner. tion recuperation program for children under Partners are located in the age of five. Asia, Africa and Latin The clinic proAmerica. vides nutritional Attending Globesupplements for “In the global scheme of things Med’s East Africa Fochildren while there are a lot of huge rum as a co-director educating mothorganizations that are pouring and working with a ers about how money into these communities GlobeMed partner, to ensure their but not necessarily in a Premios Pasos, in Guachildren are sustainable way.” temala led Larsen to properly nourher research project. ished. “[In Uganda] I Larsen will -Beth Larsen ‘12 heard over and over be researching about how malnutrihow programs tion, agriculture, and like Premios Pabasic hygiene is a huge problem.” Larsen said. sos are having an impact on their community. Later, when she went to Guatemala, Larsen *Continued on A3
Trimesters system put to the test By Elijah Jones and Ailsa Burke City High is in a small minority group of schools on the trimester schedule. That may change in 2015. City High may be switching from a trimester schedule to a semester schedule to aid the students taking University or Kirkwood classes. “It would sync up a little bit better if the schools that are on semesters are feeding in there,” City High principal, John Bacon said. “That wouldn’t be the sole reason, but that’s sort of how the conversation got going.” The Kirkwood Regional Center, opening in 2015, will focus on a more affordable way to get both high school students and adults involved in classes. Free classes will be offered to give high school and college credit to students. Assistant Superintendent Ann Feldman heads an exploratory committee to “study the idea of moving to a semester schedule.” The soonest the change to semesters would occur would be the 2015-16 school year. City High dean of students Doug Lestina suggests another reason the district is looking at semesters. “The theory in education right now is focus on the core curriculum, the Iowa core, making sure the kids have the basics,” Lestina said. The biggest concern facing the schedule change is how trimester electives at City High will be effected. Trimester courses would require an extension of six weeks from the normal twelve week course. Courses will either need to be expanded, combined, or cut. This brings concern to some of those teaching those classes. “Semester scale would ruin the art department,” art teacher Michael Close said. “One third of the amount of students that we have every year would be cut, because our classes can’t get any bigger.” Lestina proposes having electives in the evening during semester schedule, extending the length of the school day, or rotating electives year by year. Another possibility to keep electives would be introducing quarter length required courses. In a quarter system, 12 week required courses would likely be shortened to 9 weeks in order to sustain all state requirements without having to greatly expand courses. “[Semesters] give a lot less opportunity for kids to take classes,” Lestina said. “Some students are really busy, and [trimesters] give them an opportunity to take more classes then they would if we went to semesters.” Vice Principal Scott Jesperson sees reason for switching to semesters regarding the effects of semesters on class time and management. “I like the idea of semesters. I like being more in line; I always have that college-readiness in mind,” he said. “I’ve taught electives. I would’ve loved to have more time with the students.” Bacon is also considering the possibility of challenges for some students the schedule switch could cause. He says that kids who struggle more in school can make the majority of the year better if they fail a single trimester, whereas if a student fails a semester, they are failing half of the year. But he sees the other side, too. *Continued on A6