Roselle SD 12 discusses staffing plan; district recommends keeping three sections per grade and adding reading support

At its March 16 meeting the Roselle School District 12 Board of Education heard a detailed staffing presentation from Superintendent Dr. Henderson about enrollment trends, class sections and support staffing for the coming year.

Administration presented projected kindergarten-through-eighth-grade enrollments and recommended retaining three sections per grade at Spring Hills rather than creating a fourth section for the incoming sixth-grade cohort (projected 88 students for that grade). Administrators and teachers explained that middle-school scheduling — including block schedules and grade-level team assignments where teachers teach a single grade — makes adding a section more complex than in elementary grades and could reduce teachers’ planning time, risking burnout and loss of collaborative planning structures.

To support students and teachers without adding a full classroom section, the district proposed maintaining existing special education staffing, keeping EL supports, and adding one reading specialist to expand push-in services in classrooms and provide flexible interventions across elementary and middle grades. The additional position would allow reading specialists to work in both pull-out and push-in models and to start part of the day at the middle school to support WIN intervention time.

Trustees questioned instructional impacts, preps and scheduling constraints; administration said instructional outcomes have remained strong and that the proposed intervention support is targeted to accelerate reading growth and relieve pressure on ELA teachers. No formal vote was recorded on staffing changes at the meeting; the discussion guided the district’s budget and staffing planning.