Academic Development Fund (ADF)
WHAT WOULD STEELE LOSE WITHOUT THE ADF?
The Steele Academic Development Fund (ADF) is the vehicle for raising funds to provide instructional support in the classroom. The funds may only be used for instructional support as approved by the Academic Development Committee. For the past two years, funds contributed to the ADF have been used to pay for second educators in the classroom-in other words, interns and general paraprofessionals. Previously, the ADF was used to support a reading specialist. At a later date, the Steele community may decide to use the funds for some other type of instructional support.
In total, the ADF provided $85,000 to Steele for the 2009-10 school year. This money was used to pay for eight interns and four paraprofessionals. Sixteen of our eighteen classrooms have either an intern or a paraprofessional. Two of the smaller classrooms do not have an intern or paraprofessional, but will next year because of the growth of the student population.
The ADF is completely funded by contributions from the Steele community. The Steele PTA contributes all the proceeds from the Auction. The PTA contributed a total of $60,644 for the 2009-2010 school year. The Steele Elementary Budget contributed $78,356 and Stanley British Primary School discounted the cost of our interns by $24,000.
The current balance in the ADF to provide assistance for next year is $32,000, the amount raised at the Steele Auction in October. The Principal is pursuing funding from Denver Public Schools (DPS). The cost of each intern is set at $11,000 for next year. We will need nine interns. At this point, we do not know how much assistance either DPS or Stanley will be able to provide.
