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Save Region 14 Elementary |
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Reconsideration Not Reconfiguration |
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Our Position... |
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The procedure by which the Region 14 Reconfiguration plan was introduced and consequently passed was hasty and lacking in the necessary parental and community input that should accompany a decision of this nature. The failure to properly communicate with parents and the community, especially those most affected by this plan, will ultimately affect the long term viability of this plan and the success of our regional schools.
The alleged benefits of the reconfiguration plan fail to justify the upheaval that will undoubtedly occur both in our communities and our children’s lives. The reconfiguration proposal enables the fifth grade to return to MES only to displace over four hundred children from Woodbury and Bethlehem in return. In addition, the proposed reconfiguration actually increases student enrollment at BOTH schools. Mitchell Elementary will increase by roughly 28 students next year, and Bethlehem will increase by roughly fifteen percent. Furthermore, this displacement, which obviously does not address our space needs, involves busing our children across a 60 square mile district. Obviously busing is a grave concern; it’s fiscally irresponsible, an ineffective use of our children’s time, as well as a health and safety concern. In addition, it was only recently revealed that this new ‘triple tiered’ transportation approach will force our youngest children (some only four and five years old) to catch the bus at roughly 7:20 AM. Furthermore, this additional bus tier will also force cuts in instructional time at both the middle and high school to accommodate the new scheduling structure. Ironically, those schools within our school system that seem to be facing the greatest challenges have seemingly been ignored in recent months in favor of focusing on this new reconfiguration plan. Consequently, it is these same struggling grades which will lose instructional time as a result of this same plan.
But transportation concerns and the proposed triple tiered busing schedule are merely a byproducts of the greater issue, and that is that the reconfiguration plan fails to adequately recognize the importance of community schools. Community schools not only afford practical benefits in terms of parental involvement in schools and reduced transportation costs, they also enable our children the continuity and familiarity they both need and deserve in their lives and education. A good education is in part a function of a school’s positive relationship with its community; a relationship that can only be enhanced when the school is actually located within the community. This is evidenced by the vast number of towns that maintain community schools. There is no other town in this state that fails to provide a community school for the lower grades. Region 13 has frequently been cited as an example in the past by the administration, but this divided configuration occurs at the middle school level and not the elementary level.
In addition, the continuity of experience afforded to children in wider grade span schools within one community ensures that they are not forced to make unnecessary transitions forcing them to adapt to new faculty members, new facilities, and new communities every three years. In addition, wider grade spans allow for interaction between older and younger students. Wider grade spans also force faculty accountability for students often resulting in higher academic achievement- this fact is evidenced in educational literature. Although the research on grade spans may be “thin,” the research on transitions is fairly conclusive. Transitions are universally regarded as detrimental to the academic experience, a fact that seemed to resonate with the board just a few short years ago as evidenced by documents circulated by the board at that time.
Although the grade span in question, a K-2/3-5 divided between two communities is unprecedented in this state, it has been repeatedly submitted by the administration that it can be “made to work.” Certainly that can be said of almost any policy, but at what cost are we forcing this new paradigm and for what benefit?
The benefit of equity at the fifth grade level may be a compelling issue but hardly necessitates a wide scale devaluation of experience for all of Region 14 children and the increased transportation costs that will be incurred- the sum of which is currently unknown. Certainly, we can address this issue with less costly and radical solutions. There is the potential for the fifth graders of BES to move down to the middle school, the redistricting alternative, and of course there is the potential for a revised budget to expand Mitchell School.
It has also been submitted that reconfiguration enables an alignment of curriculum that may result as a byproduct of closer teacher proximity. As stated recently at the hearing, this will allow the administration to more easily coordinate curriculum implementation. In other school districts, they move teachers to achieve this end, not students. On this note, in one of the few documents provided to us in a recent FOI request for research related to reconfiguration, “When your K-5 School changes to a 3-5 School,” the administrator at the particular school district in question is cited as saying in regard to teacher collaboration that “it has been my experience that most teachers rarely observe colleagues even at the same grade level.” Regardless, it seems clear that administrative failures and challenges must and should be addressed at the administrative level.
Another benefit that has been frequently touted in recent weeks is the cost streamlining that will occur as a result of the proposed consolidation. The savings to be gained by streamlining the elementary level libraries seems negligible at best- the current budget allocates roughly $26,000 for the library books for ALL of Region 14; anyone who has perused the elementary level libraries of late should be well aware that the majority of that limited budget is devoted elsewhere in the region! As for savings in instructional materials, the administration has failed to pinpoint which materials and the dollar amount associated with those materials, so any debate on the issue is hardly productive at this point. That being said, material resources are certainly a concern in any school district; but in focusing on line item issues, the administration may have failed to account for another obvious piece to the puzzle- funding.
This plan may have serious consequences regarding our ability to provide adequate resources for our schools in the long term. By failing to provide local schools for young families and their children, we will undoubtedly change the social demographics of these two communities making it more difficult to pass future budgets and adequately fund our schools. The number of parents currently considering private school as an alternative to reconfiguration demonstrates this unfortunate reality. Although this may free up extra space, as submitted by one board member, it also translates into fewer taxpayers with a vested interest in supporting school budgets. This community impact needs to be seriously considered and addressed.
It has also been suggested in some of the limited reconfiguration documentation that this plan enables us to operate with one fewer teacher at some grade levels and still meet the recommended class sizes cited on page three of the proposal, thus enabling our members of the teaching staff to perform in some other capacity. First, it seems as though the space available for these freed up professionals is seriously lacking. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, those recommended class sizes represent an increase for roughly 79% of the classes at BOTH elementary schools. Again, there is quite a bit of research as well as good old fashioned common sense to suggest that larger class sizes are NOT beneficial.
In recent weeks, the opposition to this plan has often times been reduced to an issue of convenience and transportation. In addition, some have qualified the argument as a personal attack on the board or Dr. Cronin. We suspect these tactics are merely to detract from the focus of our argument which is obviously less simplistic: Reconfiguration is logically inconsistent, seemingly educationally unsound, and a Pandora’s box of challenges, uncertainties, and unknown costs that should not be imposed on our children or our communities without a demonstrable benefit incurred. The question our community needs to ask is, do we want to take on the costly, disruptive transport of over four hundred children (some of them as young as four and a half) across a sixty square mile district in order to address the 5th grade problem? It seems in an effort to address one problem, we are creating a myriad of others.
If this plan addressed the needs of our children or the community, perhaps the region would be obliged to support it despite the obvious impracticalities imposed by this new paradigm. If the vast challenges could be reconciled with a brighter academic future, perhaps it would necessitate a re-evaluation, but the Region 14 Administration has failed to make that case. At then end of the reconfiguration ride is not a state of the art facility, full-day kindergarten for all, enhanced programs, new textbooks, up to date technology, better teachers, or a program for the talented and gifted. At the end of the ride is another old school with an influx of the same teachers, same administrators, cramped facilities, all-day kindergarten for what amounts to roughly ten percent of the students, and additional students in each grade all clamoring for the individual attention and recognition they so much deserve. We have posed the question to the Region 14 Board of Education, how far will we go to end up where we began?
Erica Barber Families for Region 14 Elementary
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Save Region 14 Elementary |
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Reconsideration Not Reconfiguration |
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