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By Joanne M. Haas
Mary Jo LaMalfa has been waiting a long time for a teaching year like this.
"I've waited all my life for a smaller classroom," said LaMalfa, a kindergarten teacher at Louisa May Alcott Elementary School and a 16-year veteran of Milwaukee Public Schools.
And this year she got it. She's in SAGE - the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education program. "It's a wonderful program. I can't say enough about it," LaMalfa said.
Started in 1996-97, SAGE provides $2,000 per student in extra state aids to kindergarten through 3rd grade to ensure student-teacher ratios stay at 15-1 or below. It grew from 30 schools in its inaugural year, at a cost of $4.3 million, to 566 schools this year at a cost of nearly $55 million covering about 60,000 students. Fifteen of those students are in LaMalfa's class of 5-year-olds.
"The parents support it. I'm just enjoying it, and the kids are just eating it up," said LaMalfa, in her third year at Alcott. LaMalfa also finds materials are easier to come by in groups of 15 or less than in packs of 30.
"If I have a science project, I can actually split the class. When I had the 25 to 30, that is not manageable."
Governor Scott McCallum, however, is proposing to limit the state's SAGE program to kindergarten and 1st grade. McCallum's proposal, included in his state budget package, allows SAGE growth in kindergarten through 3rd grade in high poverty schools only.
Former Governor Tommy Thompson suggested similar limits, but those were rejected by the Legislature, which instead added millions to ensure expansions. A similar fight is shaping up in the Legislature, where Democrats in the Senate and Assembly have pledged to restore funding. That would please SAGE supporter LaMalfa.
"I have their (students') attention. I don't have as many discipline problems," she said, adding the kids seem to get more involved in learning with the smaller class size. "It is such a small group that I can sit on a carpet and reach out and touch everybody.
"I can get more done, and the kids can sit longer."
She said her testing shows kids are learning and loving it.
"I've had more fun this year than any other year I can think of," she said. "The kids are just wonderful. And I think part of it is I have the time to spend with them."
She said even the classrooms with two teachers and 30 students experience more noise and chaos that interrupt the learning process.
But the one thing she's not quite used to is she feels like a mother duck sometimes - especially when she needs to take a bathroom break.
"They all stand outside the door and wait for me," she said, with a laugh.