Wellington students head back to school with more than $400,000 in village grants on the way for tutoring and extra help, as one national publication cites education among the reasons it ranks Wellington as the best place for families to live in Florida in 2024.
The Village of Wellington’s Keely Spinelli grant program provides $37,000 each to 11 Wellington public elementary, middle and high schools, targeting the 25 percent of students who could use the most assistance in language arts, math and other areas. The village’s Education Committee unanimously approved the 2024-25 grants at a meeting Tuesday, Aug. 6.
One of the goals is to keep graduation rates high, a factor that pops up in the methodology behind Fortune magazine’s 50 Best Places to Live for Families in 2024. It picked a top place for each state, with Wellington taking that distinction in Florida, and the village ranked No. 36 nationally.
“This wide-ranging analysis provided a broad array of places that offer essential resources from healthcare to education, as well as a sense of community,” the publication explained.
Wellington’s Keely Spinelli grants, named for a respected village principal who died in 2008, mark an uncommon instance of a municipality supplementing state and other funding for public schools with its own direct aid.
“It’s something to be proud of,” Committee Member Kristina O’Brien said.
As a formal last step, the Wellington Village Council is slated to approve this year’s Spinelli grants in its budget in September.
How are they used? At Panther Run Elementary School, for example, the plan is to spend the grant on two part-time reading tutors and supplemental instructional materials for language and math.
At Wellington High School, the money will go for a site license for a program called IXL Mathematics, along with other spending on tutors and software.
Schools do not always spend the precise amount of their grants in any given year, carrying over surplus or deficits to the next school term.
Equestrian Trails Elementary School, for instance, will have nearly $50,000 to work with in 2024-25, while less than $26,000 is available for Wellington Elementary School, records show. Staff members said such fluctuation is normal.
District officials said challenges in the coming year will include crowded conditions at some schools, including Binks Forest Elementary School. Some easing is expected in subsequent years, with added capacity coming in and adjustments to enrollments at particular schools. Binks Forest, for instance, will get overcrowding relief when the new West Acreage Area Elementary School opens near Arden next year.
Stricter state regulations that took effect July 1 require restricted entry points to schools not just during class hours, but also during after-school and weekend activities.
Officials asked parents to help by allowing sufficient time for drop-off and pickup, as schools work to control access at gates and building entrances.
Another concern has been student absences, with 30 percent of students in some schools missing 15 or more days per school term. Issues there may include not just health anxieties coming out of the pandemic, but families thinking it’s OK to take children along for trips and long weekends in the post-pandemic world of more flexible work scheduling, officials said. The absences can add up and hurt academic performance, they worry.
Still, the challenges should not block out what the village is getting right, Committee Member Melissa Raineri said.
“I think everyone needs to hear a lot more of the positive stuff,” she said.
To learn more about why Fortune ranked Wellington as one of the best places for families, visit www.fortune.com/well/ranking/best-places-families.
The Keely Spinelli grant of $400,000 of Wellington’s taxes shows that the School District of Palm Beach County is failing the public, requiring municipalities who can afford it, to pick up the slack. Is every District student getting the same education? Does the District include these grants and other donations in their Financial Statement?
What about Wellington’s charter and private schools, shouldn’t their Wellington Students get a piece of the pie, too? The School District of Palm Beach County mission is to educate our children not the Village of Wellington. The Village’s Charter does not address using our taxes to bail out the School District of Palm Beach County, and our elected officials don’t care that we have to subsidize our children education. I do not recall any Wellington’s referendum forcing us to pay twice for public education.