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> Michigan City gets $9.9 mil in stimulus money, creates 4 jobs
Southsider2k12
post Jan 26 2010, 11:29 AM
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http://www.post-trib.com/news/1994785,stim...na-0117.article

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Michigan City: $9.9 million, 4 jobs

* Michigan City Area Schools: $7.7 million.

* Michigan City: $543,000.

* North Central Community Action Corp.: $455,000.

* Housing Authority of the City of Michigan City: $439,000.

* Community Organization of Social Concern: $151,000.

* Boys & Girls Club of Michigan City: $43,000.


The NICTD created 7 jobs with almost $14 million, but that number is supposed to increase to about 40 this year.

QUOTE
Outside school districts, the Northwest Indiana Commuter Transportation District received the largest amount of stimulus funding. The entity got $13.9 million to replace signals, control systems and signs for the South Shore train between Michigan City and South Bend. The overhead copper signal wires will be replaced with new modern signals linked by fiber-optic cable to a central location from which all train movements can be controlled.

John Parsons, spokesman for NICTD, said the project has created the equivalent of about seven full-time jobs. Once construction starts later this year, that number will increase to 35 to 40, he said. The project is expected to be completed in 2011.

Cities and towns received 14 percent of Northwest Indiana's stimulus funding, but none of them were among the top 10 recipients.
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Dave
post Jan 26 2010, 12:59 PM
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QUOTE
* Michigan City Area Schools: $7.7 million.


I read the article, but I couldn't tell -- is this money earmarked for anything in particular, or is it possible this could plug the gap left by the reassessment/property tax debacle?
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Southsider2k12
post Jan 26 2010, 01:01 PM
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QUOTE(Dave @ Jan 26 2010, 12:59 PM) *

I read the article, but I couldn't tell -- is this money earmarked for anything in particular, or is it possible this could plug the gap left by the reassessment/property tax debacle?


The article mentioned that the low amounts of job creation were due in many cases to these funds being used to replace lost funding, instead of actual creation activities. I don't know if that is the case here or not, but it could be.
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Southsider2k12
post Feb 1 2010, 09:44 AM
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http://thenewsdispatch.com/articles/2010/0...3c814038993.txt

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How is MCAS using stimulus funds?

Brenda Christianson/For The News-Dispatch Seventh grade students relax with books they’ve chosen to read in Brenda Christianson’s Read 180 class at Krueger Middle School.
By Alicia Ebaugh
Staff Writer
Published: Sunday, January 31, 2010 4:17 AM CST
MICHIGAN CITY — Most of the $5.9 million in federal stimulus money Michigan City Area Schools was slated to receive last year was used to cover state budget shortfalls, school officials said. But two literacy programs purchased by the school district with the rest of the money are making a difference in students’ learning power.

More than $4 million in MCAS stimulus funds paid for salaries, teacher retirement and Social Security payments, according to an expenditure report on money the district received from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The state did not make its usual payment to schools for June 2009, said Betsy Kohn, MCAS director of communication; instead, districts were paid in stimulus funds.

Many states had to resort to using stimulus funds to replace shortfalls in elementary and secondary education budgets, preventing job losses, according to Department of Education Superintendent Tony Bennett.

“Together, we must do everything we can to avoid creating a cliff in education funding,” Bennett wrote in a letter to school superintendents last April.

But that savings didn’t stop Indiana from later reducing its education budget by $300 million for 2010, which will force MCAS to make more than $2 million in cuts this year.

Board member Beryle Burgwald questioned the district’s use of the money to pay salaries at last week’s School Board meeting, asking whether any of the money was used to give promotions to current employees.

“Not to my knowledge, no,” replied Theo Boone, business manager and chief financial officer.

“I heard that it may have been and it wasn’t supposed to be used for that,” Burgwald said. Boone said he’d look into it.

The school district did use $159,840 to hire an after-school teacher and six assistants at MCAS schools with high percentages of underprivileged youth, Kohn said. Those positions will exist for two years.

A majority of the stimulus money left over — approximately $1.4 million — was spent to purchase Read 180 and Fast ForWord programs that were implemented this school year, said Jan Radford, director of K-12 curriculum. Read 180 is an intensive reading intervention program designed to meet the needs of students who are reading below grade level, which Radford said was a recognized problem among elementary and middle school students in the district. Through instructional computer work, direct instruction in reading and writing skills and time to read, the premise is that students make a 180-degree turnaround in their literacy skills in 180 school days.

Almost 700 elementary and middle school students, and nearly 50 high school special education students, participated in the program in the first semester, Radford said. These students have already gained on average an increase of 72 Lexile points, a measure of their level of comprehension, she said.

“The kids are really loving this. Some are reading who never wanted to before,” Radford said. “We still have 18 more weeks to go, and we expect to see fabulous results in that time.”

In a school year, fourth and fifth graders are expected to gain 100 points, and middle schoolers 50 points. A student would need 300 Lexile points to move up to the next grade’s reading level.

The other program, Fast ForWord, builds foundational reading and language skills such as vocabulary and grammar while improving memory, attention, and processing rates. About 850 first and third graders, and 600 middle and high school students, are participating, using a computer program to develop those skills. Three-fourths of students who have taken a post-test after going through the program have seen an average improvement of a year and three months in their proficiency levels, Radford said. More than 100 students who were previously categorized as struggling have moved up to the next level of “emerging,” and even more students have bumped up into the top two categories of comprehension.

“At first, I wasn’t sure what all the sound syllables the students are asked to copy would do,” Radford joked. “But after that, they just took off. They’re having fun with it.”

The district bought its own Fast ForWord software so students will be able to keep using it for years to come, she said. But the licensing and materials for Read 180 are pricey, she said — about $30,000 for every 60 students.

“I’m not sure if we can continue the program without stimulus funds,” Radford said.
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