Kleczka Sees Federal Funds at Work in MPS

U.S. Rep. Jerry Kleczka (left) and Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association members Amy Blazkovec and Tommie Glenn meet with students at Franklin Pierce Elementary School in Milwaukee.

By Anne Egan-Waukau
How does a Milwaukee elementary school principal who constantly faces cuts in staff and programs in a crowded building continue to provide a great education to students?

With a great staff, an involved community and federal funding.

And that's what Franklin Pierce Elementary School Principal Alice Somers told U.S. Rep. Jerry Kleczka when he recently toured her school.

"The programs that federal funds provide dollars for are at work at this school," Kleczka said after seeing, firsthand, students and teachers in action. Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association leaders and members hosted the visit.

"I can't image any school functioning without the extra funding. It would be very difficult," Somers said.

"Without federal funding, the kids would be left behind, and that's the bottom line," said Tommie Glenn, who is an educational assistant at the school.

But everyone agreed that more funding would help ease crowding and maintain programs that work for kids and the community, and that's why Kleczka spent time with the staff and students.

"I want to see exactly what the government can do to help the kids at your school," Kleczka told Somers. "If we are going to mandate programs, we ought to pay for them."

"We appreciate anything you can do to support the schools, because money is getting tighter and tighter," Somers told him.

Assistant principal James Lindsey agreed.

"There's a lot of neat things going on here, but we couldn't do the job alone," Lindsey said. "It has a lot to do with funding. We are definitely fighting to keep our funding at its current level, if not better, because the needs of the students are so great."

Take, for example, Janet Colvin, who has taught at Pierce for 15 years. This year, budget cuts resulted in her full-time classroom assistant being reduced to part time.

"I have 25 children in my classroom, and a lot of their needs could be better met academically," Colvin said. "A lot of these children are missing out on the one-on-one instruction.

"Right now I have a child in my classroom who is reading below grade level," she said. "If he could receive additional time with an assistant, this student would show more improvement. But we can't offer him that, and that's sad."

But, Colvin added she's committed to the students at Pierce Elementary.

"I enjoy teaching. I like making a difference, and I feel like I do a very good job, and I love children," she said.

And that is the type of commitment that gets the students a great education, Somers said.

"What makes this school work is that we have a very, very dedicated staff," she said. "People are working so diligently with our students. Our students are responding and are working very, very hard. We also work very diligently to get parental support."

Lindsey agreed.

"In the fall, we had a number of kids come to us, and they could not recognize letters or sounds," he said. "Now they are reading."

However, things are getting more difficult.

"This year, we had to cut the reading resource teacher because there just is not enough money," Somers said.

Another problem at Pierce is space, she said.

"My two LD teachers (teachers of learning disabled children) operate in the hallway. My reading teacher who does support work in intermediate grades operates in the hallways. I have no room. We don't know where to go," she said. "We use every inch of space."

Kleczka noted the space crunch.

"I saw a desk by some steps," he said. "Because of crowding, someone has to work in the corridor, and that's just not right. We need to modernize the schools. That's important to me."

Somers has a wish list that includes a full-time social worker and psychologist.

"My dream is to have full-time family counseling services for my families," she said. "There is a great need for family counseling. If we could provide this at the school, it would be absolutely wonderful.

"It's difficult for our parents to seek outside counseling. We have some very needy families, and our children are coming to school with greater needs," Somers said.

And Kleczka said programs for special needs children are important to him.

"Special education would not be in existence if not for federal funding," he said. "There's always a fight to increase the funding."

Somers said she had to cut back the number of days the school librarian is at Pierce to one day a week, a difficult but necessary decision due to budget cuts.

"I would love to have a full-time librarian, but because of budgetary cuts I've had to cut the librarian's days for the past two years," Somers said. "The library should be the hub of the school."

Isabel Roche-Roman, a 2nd-grade teacher, said cutting back on the librarian will definitely have a negative effect on her students.

"Children need to go to the library and have activities with a librarian present," Roche-Roman said. "The extra help would benefit the children and the classroom teacher. But now that is something that I will have to do in addition to regular classroom time. That is a lot of work."

But despite these cuts and more, the staff do everything they can to provide students with a good education.

"You deal with what you have and you try to make it the best," Somers said. "You count on staff and parent support, and you just keep going."

Posted May 21, 2002