By By ANDY HAMILTON / Niles Daily Star
NILES – Merritt Elementary School was not singled out by the state.
The kindergarten through second grade school in the Brandywine Community Schools district was undergoing a Title I audit Thursday and Friday. The audit was a scheduled evaluation that generally takes place every few years and does not mean Merritt will lose Title I funding.
"It's just a standard review that happens for every Title I program," said Merritt principal Karen Weimer. "Typically, they try to do it every three to five years."
Weimer said it has been a few years since Merritt was audited for Title I grants. Another factor, she added, was that evaluations can take place within a few years of a district hiring a new superintendent, which Brandywine did in 2004 with Gary Rider.
Title I is a federally-funded program monitored by individual states. There are four types of Title I grants – Basic Grants, Concentration Grants, Targeted Grants and Education Finance Incentive Grants – that are all based on poverty estimates from the census and the cost of education in each state.
For the 2005-2006 school year Merritt was given a $152,953 Target Grant. The funds are used to assist students who struggle learning in the four core curriculum areas – math, science, social studies and English language arts.
Weimer said 17 Title I consultants for Michigan generally rotate every year which part of the state is evaluated. This year, along with Merritt, Weimer said schools in Benton Harbor and Bangor were also being Title I audited.
The review at Merritt was actually more of a discussion among auditors, Title I aides, teachers, parents and administrators, Weimer said. The process was actually started last spring when Merritt teachers completed surveys on their perspective of the school.
Weimer said those results were reviewed and used as discussion items Thursday and Friday. Though she admitted the audit was "very labor intensive," Weimer said it was equally productive.
"Everybody found a lot of value from it. We found it to be very worthwhile, we really did learn a lot," she added.
Weimer said Merritt staff expected to fall short in a couple of areas, mainly parent involvement. The auditors suggested improving the school's written policy on parent participation and also scheduling Title I aides more efficiently, Weimer added.
Merritt did receive good reviews in certain areas as well. Weimer said the auditors were "very happy with our curriculum mapping," which was a discussion a lot of teachers were able to answer a lot of questions in depth.