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Isn’t it time you know more about CESAs?
Their name is long – Cooperative Educational Service Agencies. What they do is very simple. CESAs make it possible for schools, regardless of size, to work together to share staff and equipment, save money, and extend educational opportunity to all corners of the state and to all kinds of children. Each of the 12 CESAs serves the special and unique needs of schools and children in a particular area of Wisconsin. They do so without mandates, without levying taxes, and with virtually no direct state appropriations.
If a school cannot afford to hire a full-time teacher for a hearing-impaired student, it shares a CESA teacher with other schools in the area, paying only for the teacher time it needs. If a school district is too small to obtain volume discounts to purchase paper, supplies or computers- and, in some cases, even natural gas and employee insurance- it bands together with other area districts to buy through the CESA. If a student cannot take Calculus or Advanced Placement (AP) History at her own high school, she can take the course at another high school via a CESA-supported distance-learning network.
Wisconsinites want and expect much from their schools. They want local control, equal access and value for their tax dollar. They want schools to cooperate and constantly strive for improvement. They want graduates to be well-trained, ready to contribute to the future prosperity of this special state. This is a lot to ask. Without CESAs, these goals would be difficult to attain; for some school districts, they would become almost impossible. With CESAs, however, Wisconsin can continue to have the outstanding schools it must have in the 21st Century. Truly, CESAs make it possible for Wisconsin to have the schools it wants- and deserves.
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