J. Larry Newton credits 3-mil education tax for staffing that helped raise school grade to A

Principal Tanya Harrelson told the Fairhope City Council work session that J. Larry Newton Elementary School used funds from Fairhope's three-mill education tax to add staff that she credits with improving the school's state report card grade from an 87 (B) last year to a 92 (A) this year.

Harrelson, J. Larry Newton Elementary School principal, said the three-mill referendum funding pays for 11 employees at her school and that the principal has discretion to allocate the school's share. "I first want to thank all of you and the citizens of Fairhope for voting for the 3 mil tax referendum for 30 years. I can't stress how much that helps all of the schools here in Fairhope," she said.

The positions paid from the three-mill funds include a math coach and a literacy coach who provide in-class professional development and work with students; a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) teacher whose classroom every student cycles through; an intervention teacher coordinator who runs small-group intervention time for students at all levels; a social worker who connects students and families with community resources; five full-time instructional paraprofessionals who pull small groups of three to five students for focused instruction; and eight part-time intervention staff (only one of whom is paid from the three-mill funds), Harrelson said.

"I'm spending almost a percent of my money on personnel to work with students individually, to get them to where they need to be, and I really feel like that's a huge difference in why our school went from a B to an A," Harrelson said. She also said the school purchases one institutional administrative professional-development membership with three-mill funds; the membership stays with the school, not with an individual administrator.

Council members asked questions about student mental-health coverage, attendance and English-as-a-second-language (ESL) services. Councilman Conners pushed for a certified mental-health professional in each school; Harrelson said Newton has two counselors and a social worker and that, given her budget and the school's needs, she does not currently see a justified additional mental-health hire at the elementary level. "When I've got two counselors and a social worker ... do I need that or do I need to focus on academics? And for me at my school, we're able to handle what we need with our social worker and our two counselors," she said.

Harrelson said chronic absenteeism is a major challenge. She explained that a student who misses 18 or more days is considered chronically absent and that chronic absenteeism counts as 15% of the state report card. "If students are absent 18 or more days, it doesn't matter if they're excused or not," she said, adding that the school is using incentive programs and parent outreach to reduce absences.

On ESL services, Harrelson said Newton has about 63 ESL students out of roughly 800 and one ESL teacher who pulls groups; ESL performance counts about 5% of the school's state score. "We've been able to hire more ESL," she said, and emphasized immersion and English-only instruction during pull-out periods to accelerate language acquisition.

Nut graf: The presentation gave council members a line-item view of how local three-mill tax revenue is applied at one elementary school and highlighted two continuing challenges for Newton's next improvement steps: lowering chronic absenteeism and raising ESL achievement.

The principal invited council members and the public to visit the school and observe classroom instruction. She said state testing (ACAP) was underway the week of the meeting and that she hoped for further gains next year. The council did not take formal action during the work session on school staffing or funding.