ESU services are critical for the operation of Elba Public Schools. As a small school district serving 130 students PK-12, the specialized services provided by ESU10 amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings and allow for the operation of the school district to be financially viable for the taxpayer.
When students have specialized instructional needs for a school psychologist, speech language pathologist, deaf educator, ELL specialist, etc. ESU is able to provide this services through the cooperative at a fraction of the cost it would otherwise cost to attempt to recruit and employ these professionals.
Additionally, the school district utilizes ESU support with regard to technology implementation, trouble-shooting, and repair, and website, server support, and internet support. These services are provided much more affordably through the cooperative than attempting to recruit and employ staff with these skills in our district.
The school district also relies on ESU for support with regard to curriculum and instruction and planning professional development as part of the continuous school improvement process. The professional development opportunities provided by ESU10 are widely utilized by our district instructional personnel, and are available at an accessible location, for far less cost than we could attempt to locate, plan, and access these professional development resources independently.
In summary, access to an ESU makes the operation of a district our size possible. Without this access, the school district would struggle to be able to recruit and employ the staff necessary to be in compliance with state and federal requirements, and if this were logistically and financially possible, the cost of doing so would be tremendously more expensive than accessing these services through the ESU.
