Numbers of children come to our school each year unprepared for formal learning. They have not had the experiences and the support that would have enabled them to meet the challenges that school provides. The range of abilities among entering students seems to widen each year. Head Start certainly helps to ameliorate that situation. Expanding the scope of that program can only increase student performance and help level the playing field.
Poverty is a very real problem in Iowa's school districts.
Unfortunately, the more rural our districts, the less visible the problem becomes. Rural poverty is not concentrated in neighborhoods or located along well-traveled roads. Our district is a fairly affluent rural district and yet over one-fourth of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch prices. Federal class size reduction funding has been an important factor in allowing our school board to make a commitment to smaller classes. Finding enough money to continue that commitment will be difficult.