sandra gunderson
Mendota Elementary School Principal Sandra Gunderson has this advice for educators who are thinking about enrolling their schools in SAGE: "Go for it."

Gunderson learned Mendota Elementary was eligible to apply for SAGE in July of 1998, less than one month before the start of her second year as the school's principal. Two other Madison elementary schools, Glendale and Midvale, were already in the program and Mendota became the third city school eligible when some nearby rural schools did not apply.

Gunderson would have preferred more time for the 40-hour application process she and her staff undertook, but she never considered turning the program down.

"SAGE is a godsend to the schools," Gunderson says. The funding from the program allowed Gunderson to increase her teaching staff from 20 to 22, and provided the school with $67,000 to buy new learning materials and replace furniture and equipment that was more than 30 years old.

SAGE has lead directly to greater quality in the classroom for Mendota's 300-plus students, through a combination of factors including smaller class sizes, upgraded learning materials, and greater parental and community involvement and support. As word has spread throughout the city of the success Mendota is having with SAGE, teachers from other schools are relishing the thought of increased one-to-one contact with students and students' parents.

"I have teachers dying to get into the school," Gunderson says.