Rushville, IL – A western Illinois school district might be able to add an additional teacher if it receives money from the economic stimulus bill.
Schuyler-Industry Superintendent Matt Plater does not know how much the district might receive. Plater says the money would be in the form of title one funding. "We already have about a quarter-of-a-million dollar grant in title one and we employee three teachers, reading teachers. We work with kids already. It would have to be spent in the same title one program, governed by the same grant and follow all the same rules," says Plater.
Plater says the district's reading title one service is offered for students in kindergarten-through fourth grades.
Plater says the title one program allows students who are a reading level behind, additional time during the school day to spend on reading. He says this helps students get back to their grades reading level.
Plater says it is possible the district will also receive additional special education and construction money. Plater says "our district has not received anything formal or official regarding the actual law that was signed and the actual package that was adopted. This was just a page early on from the first version that I collected and I shared."
Plater anticipates the district will still receive close to the same amount of money it had anticipated from the House version of the bill. "The formula according to this proposal might give us an extra $51,000," says Plater. "This was a two year proposal, I believe. So it would allow us to expand those services."
Plater says "we're not really holding our breath on any of this funding yet. When I get some new numbers generated from the new stimulus package, we'll get more detailed about that."