Coleman Middle School

 

Dear Parents and Community Members:
Thank you for your continued support and participation through the beginning of 2nd semester. Our students have experienced successes in the classrooms and in our extra-curricular programs and activities. I believe that this is a testament to their motivation and hard work as well as your commitment to them. Second semester seems to be flying by and the end of the third nine weeks is just two weeks away, which ends right before Spring Break. By the way, Spring Break is March 15-19. Our Reading State Assessments have already begun and the Math State Assessments begin at the end of March. We have been preparing our students for our state assessment through more rigorous classroom instruction and lessons, Reading Plus programs, extreme literacy, mandatory tutoring, After School Programs and other interventions as our pledge to continue to close the achievement gap and increase student achievement for all students. At Coleman Middle School, we will continue to celebrate learning and make sure that Failure is Truly Not An OPTION! Since the State Assessments have begun, please make every effort to schedule appointments so they don’t conflict with your child’s assessment schedule.
Reading State Assessments will continue this month on March 1-4. In order for Coleman to meet the state target goal for Reading, we must have 83.7% of our students score at Meets Standard or above. If your child meets this goal then they will meet the Standard by getting Exceeds Standard or Exemplary. The Math State Assessment begins March 24th and ends April 9th and our Math goal is 82.3% of our students must meet standard or above. The reason for the big window of both State Assessments is because we are testing on computers this year and we have to accommodate all Language Arts and Math classes. We also have some incentives for our students that meet standard or above for both the Reading and Math State Assessments.
As you may know, every year our target goal for Math and Reading State Assessments increases every year until 2014 where 100% of our students must meet standard. We will continue to strive to meet these goals despite the state’s budget cuts. However, as funding continues to decrease from the state, we are expected to reach increasing target goals every year. Coleman and our district are committed not to take any steps back which is evident by our district’s math score increase of 24% and reading up 19% since 2000, graduation rate increases by 14% since 2000, 40 schools including Coleman for the first time received the state’s Standard of Excellence Award, and more than $27 million in scholarships were awarded in 2009. I feel it is imperative that all parents and community members are properly educated on our district’s budget and on cuts we had to take and may
continue to take. Did you know that there has been a decrease in funding five times since January 2009? Our total loss for the district since January 2009 is $34 million and there may be another 20 million dollar cut for next school year. Unfortunately these cuts can only come out of the district’s Unrestricted Funds which is about 40.5% of the total budget. The other 59.5% of the budget is Restricted Funds which are used for specific areas dictated by the federal or state government like grants, vocational, special education, nutritional services, capital outlay, state interventions, ESOL, etc. Do you know the difference between Restricted and Unrestricted Funds? A good analogy is like a paycheck. Your gross pay (total budget for the district) - what you earn—is NOT what you get to spend. You have required expenses (Restricted Funds) like health insurance, federal, state, and local taxes, etc. You can’t just decide not to pay these expense items. Your net pay (Unrestricted Funds) is what you get to budget for house payment, car payment, food bills, etc. There have been miscommunicated facts about how our district spends its money and how we can spend our funds. In order to clear up this miscommunication, I have attached a flyer with graphs to this newsletter that will help you better understand the complexity of the district budget. It is imperative that each parent and community member get the correct facts to make educated decisions. I am providing two opportunities this month for parents to listen to a presentation which will allow you to understand the district budget better like Restricted Funds versus Unrestricted Funds. The first meeting is Monday, March 1, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. and the second meeting is Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. Both meetings will take place in the Coleman Library. I hope you plan to attend. To put this all in perspective, when you consider a potential additional $20 million cut for next year’s 2010-2011 school year, consider that : 1. You could cut all athletics in the district and we would save about $2 million. 2. You could turn all the lights off in the district and save about $13 million but not be able to run your school or protect your property. Both of these scenarios will save the district $15 million and we still need to cut $5 million more. This is why it is extremely important to understand the complexity of the district budget, what the district faces with future cuts, and what you can do to help.
Finally, on behalf of our staff, thank you for your continued support of our students and the work that we do for them. It is truly the community, parents and staff working together that allows us to maintain the tradition of being one of the best middle schools in Wichita. Please continue to stay involved with your student’s education, keep asking how they are doing in their classes, and motivate them to do well on their State Assessments.
Sincerely, Gil Alvarez .

Spring Break this year will be from March 15 through March 19. Also, there will be no school Friday, March 12, due to a Non-Teaching Duty Day. Enjoy the break!
Spirit Shirts/Memory Books
Coleman spirit shirts are on sale now for $5.00. What a bargain! The shirts that are on sale are the grey spirit shirts we sold at the beginning of the school year, cross-country, volleyball, basketball and NAL shirts. There is a limited supply of small and medium shirts and a good supply of Large and X-Large shirts. At $5.00 a shirt, this is a good time to stock up for the remainder of the school year.
Check with Sharon Alliband at 973-6630 to see if you have purchased your Memory Book this year. The cost for the Memory Book is $10.00. They will be distributed in late May. Make sure you get a copy by purchasing it today!