Leepertown named Spotlight School

Leepertown Elementary School teacher Karen Perra helps first-grader Michaela Znaniecki with a spring art project Wednesday morning at the Bureau school. Perra has eight children in her first-grade class. Superintendent Amber Harper has commended her staff for their dedication to the education of the children at Leepertown. (BCR photo/Donna Barker)

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Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series on the Illinois Honor Roll.

BUREAU — The Illinois State Board of Education released its list of Illinois Honor Roll schools last week, and once again Leepertown Grade School was included.

The tiny eastern Bureau County school has been a regular on the lists, receiving an Academic Improvement award in 2003 and 2004; both Academic Improvement and Spotlight School in 2005; Spotlight School in 2006 and 2007; and both Academic Improvement and Spotlight School again in 2008. For 2009, Leepertown was once again designated a Spotlight School.

Spotlight Schools are defined by the ISBE as high-poverty schools where high academic performance is closing the “achievement gap.” The 425 schools chosen this year all met the
criteria of making Adequate Yearly Progress, having at least half the students from low-income families, and having at least 70 percent passing the state achievement tests in both reading and mathematics.

Of Leepertown’s 51 students in 2009, 76.5 percent were considered low income and 89 percent of them met of exceeded the state standards.

Superintendent Amber Harper gives the majority of the credit to her staff.

“Leepertown’s staff puts out an amazing effort to assure our children succeed,” she said. “Each year, due to our high mobility, the number of children that successfully meet and exceed expectations is phenomenal.”

For 2009, Leepertown’s mobility rate was an incredible 51.1 percent, which meant more than half of the students enrolled in or left the district during the school year, more than three times the state average.

Other factors that add to Leepertown’s success include its small size and outside resources. Harper said they allow the staff to target individual children’s needs and provide one-on-one assistance.

“We have four AmeriCorps workers this year, each paraprofessional-certified, and that provides us with a total of 3,600 hours of additional assistance,” Harper said. “We are the fortunate recipients of a 21st Century Community Learning Grant, thanks to our Regional Office of Education who wrote the grant, that provides before and after-school care in a rich learning environment.”

The 21st Century grant will continue for four more years and will include a summer school program, which Harper said is another key factor in Leepertown’s history of success.

“Last summer the Business Employment Skills Team provided us with four workers over the summer,” she said.

More assistance in providing original programming for Leepertown students comes from the Sun Foundation, Illinois Valley Fine Arts Trust, University of Illinois Extension and this year’s Kennedy Center’s Spotlight on Your Community Award.

“I really have a passion for this place,” Harper said. “It’s so much fun when you have so little to work with, and you’re able to leverage so much for the kids.”

But the state’s economic situation is adding to Harper’s challenges. In November, the board released a long-term, non-certified staff member, and in February, two paraprofessionals were released for the upcoming school year.

Oh, and so were four of Leepertown’s seven teachers.

Unless educational funding improves, there will be three teachers in three classrooms next year, one for kindergarten through second grade, another for third through fifth grades, and the third for sixth through eighth grades.

“While classes will still be relatively small, the teachers still have to reach students over many grades,” Harper said. “They’ll just be stretched to the max.”

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