Here & Now

Roger Kordus Discusses Common Core Standards

Frederica Freyberg:

So far, districts in Wisconsin have invested about $25 million implementing the Common Core Standards in math and English. There is a move among some Republicans in the legislature to rewrite the standards and change the state test coming next year that aligns to Common Core. Governor Walker supports that move. However, school districts across the state favor the standards now in place, as does Wisconsin’s Chamber of Commerce. Smaller school districts already struggling with lean budgets are moving ahead implementing the Common Core Standards in anticipation of next year’s new statewide tests for students. Cuba City is one such small, rural district in southwest Wisconsin. Its superintendent is Roger Kordus. Superintendent, thanks very much for being here.

Roger Kordus:

Good morning.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, I want to know where your district is on implementing the Common Core Standards. Is it still kind of a work in progress there?

Roger Kordus:

It’s still a work in progress. We’ve been implementing the Common Core for the past three years, and the Common Core engages higher level thinking. It requires new curriculum, new ways of teaching, and that’s what we’ve been doing here at the Cuba City School District. We’ve been implementing it for the past three years.

Frederica Freyberg:

How expensive is it for you to do that, and what kinds of things does that implementation entail?

Roger Kordus:

Well, granted, we’ve always upgraded our curriculum within an ongoing basis. However, just giving an example of some of the costs though, we’re looking in our language arts series, we’re looking at anywhere from 60 to $70,000 investing in new curriculum. With those costs come technology and online packages, because a lot of the textbooks are going through online. They’re becoming digitized. They have software licenses. And we’re looking at increases of different things, like one software cost us $10,000, another one cost us $7,000, to bring those online resources for the students.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how well can your district withstand those kinds of costs?

Roger Kordus:

Well, we believe that– we’re trying to plan a year to two to three years out. However, here's an example of some of the costs we’re looking at. Just to upgrade our wireless and our hardware infrastructure for technology, we’re looking at about $40,000 in the next year just to upgrade our wireless and our technology infrastructure. We’re going to need to invest in some technologies, like laptops, whether it be iPads, Windows surfaces. Right now we’re preferring to go to a PC laptop. We're looking at five carts, each cart would hold about 24 laptops. Each cart runs about $20,000. That was the latest quote we got. So you’re looking at about $120,000 for next year that the district would either have to lease on a three-year basis or an all-out outright purchase would be about $120,000. That with the $40,000 infrastructure upgrade, you can see it gets up to $200,000 real quick.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you have that kind of money or do you have to make cuts in other areas to implement these standards?

Roger Kordus:

Well, it’s probably going to be a combination of each. Looking as we plan for next year’s budget, see if we can reallocate some resources for our budget, look at our levy and look any increase through the equalized aid. Again, next year there will be about a 75-dollar bump per student in the equalized aid and revenue limit formula. So that all helps, but it’s not going to be enough to incur the costs of about 150 to $200,000. So we’ll be looking at realigning our budget. We’ll be looking at what we can do at our annual meeting, as well.

Frederica Freyberg:

We only have really about 15 seconds left, I’m afraid, but I wonder if, given that you’re still kind of pushing all of this through, is your district going to be ready for these new statewide tests that is are coming down the pike next year?

Roger Kordus:

We are doing everything we can to be ready for it. We are kind of in a race against time. But we are doing everything we can to make sure our students are going to be able to do the best they can and the new standards, the new state assessments, that are coming our way.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Superintendent Roger Kordus, thanks very much.

Roger Kordus:

You’re welcome.