Foley approves $250K to support schools

Foley approves $250K to support schools

Foley City Council voted to increase support of its Baldwin County School System schools from $200,000 to $250,000 to match the amount approved by The Baldwin County Public School System and provide a total of $500,000 for Foley area schools.
One area affecting many Foley schools is teaching English to students who arrive not yet able to speak the language. Foley students in the English as a Second Language program, or ESL, is increasing. In the 2021-22 school year, the Foley feeder pattern had 5,168 students. In that enrollment, 914, or 17.7%, were in the ESL program. In the school year that ended in May 2023, the total enrollment was 5,178 with 944 ESL students, or 18.2% of the total. Some of the Foley area schools used the city funding to work on improving test scores for ESL students and others.
Foley Middle School concentrated on reading and math for the whole school as well as ESL. There was a 14% increase in test scores of ESL, a 49% increase from the previous year in reading and 33% increase in math last school year.