A military-sponsored program isn’t the only thing drawing concern as Monroe School District leaders consider a long list of budget cuts.
Parents who enroll their children in the district’s Excel program, geared at higher-performing students, are worried the option will disappear at sixth grade.
They lobbied school leaders this week to spare the program.
Community volunteers placed the sixth-grade Excel program on a list of 31 “first choice” cuts.
Cutting the program at sixth grade would save an estimated $20,000 by doing away with the self-contained class in favor of honors classes, already in place for seventh and eighth grades at the middle schools.
But parents say the program has proved effective and should be kept.
Carla Stewart’s son Jackson, 11, is in the fifth-grade Excel program this year, hosted by Chain Lake Elementary School.
When he was in regular math classes, Jackson would spend half his time helping other students because he’d already finished, she said. Now, he’s working through a geometry textbook.
“It’s stimulated him in a way he’s never been stimulated before,” Stewart said.
Martin Quinn, whose 9-year-old daughter skipped a grade as part of the program, said research backs up the self-contained idea.
“This program works and we believe in it and want to keep it,” Quinn said.
The Excel program is offered in third through sixth grade. Chain Lake Elementary hosts the program in younger grades, while Monroe Middle School hosts the sixth-grade program.
Excel students share some classes, such as gym, art and library time, with other students.
All middle schools in the district offer honors classes.
Monroe school leaders are seeking to trim $1.2 million from the district’s $52 million budget.
Volunteers in recent months came up with and prioritized more than $2 million worth of potential cuts. School board members now are hearing public comments.
The school board is to decide on cuts this spring. A final budget will be approved in August.
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