Dupage Policy Journal

At their March 13 board meeting, the members of the DuPage High School District Board of Education discussed staffing changes for the upcoming school year. 

Superintendent Jean Barbanente and assistant superintendent Michael Bolden gave the board and community members a preview of the staffing situation for the 2023-24 school year. This comes after students have enrolled for the next year and students have finished selecting the courses they will take for the upcoming school year. As a result, the board and staff are wrapping up discussions on the number of courses, scheduling, and class sizes, which leads to staffing reports. 

"One of the major components or changes that we discussed at the staffing table this year was related to our academic interventions," assistant superintendent Michael Bolden said. "So we have academic interventions such as credit recovery within our departments and we have the LSC or Learning Support Center at Addison Trail or the ARC at Willowbrook where these are scheduled in the students' schedule for the day and (they) go there to receive support. So we were looking for some ideas on how we can more effectively provide these interventions to really make a difference in students who might be at risk and who might be struggling throughout their academic courses. So (we're) working on and addressing those needs by having things in the areas where students do need the most support that we've identified."

Although there will be a more formal motion brought to a board meeting in April on staffing, the district wanted to give an update. Bolden said the district anticipates exactly 4,000 students next year, 2028 at Addison Trail, and 1972 students at Willowbrook. The staff is trying to rework some of its licensed support staff into more support and academic areas to meet the students where they are at and help them reach their goals and benchmarks. 

The board was told that while the number of enrolled students will likely change before the end of the school year and even more before the start of next school year, the number enrolled and interested in courses across the district’s offerings remains fairly steady with what they have seen in the past and predicted for the coming year. 

Bolden said the number of staffing will remain flat. Some staff will likely see a redistribution of responsibilities or classes because of slightly different numbers for specific courses or subjects, but overall no changes for the next year. The board was happy with the level of student interest and the maintaining of staffing numbers, and were looking forward to a more formal adoption of these reports.