Our Elementary schools are to reconfigure this fall '04-'05 school year. A parent group has been formed to protest this action. The boards original claim for needing to make the change was $$ & a decrease in enrollment. The public was informed that a change needed to take place and voted it down (via the board) and this past year stayed the same. NOW, we're changing! No more discussion with the public!

My question is for those of you who have similar configurations (k-2; 3&4; 5&6) in 3 different buildings, how does your school handle the busing issue? They have cut our school day short by 45 min. to accomodate busing (aprox 20 +/- days less classroom time per school year). This seems to be the biggest issue for the parent group against the change. Our communities are aprox 5-7 miles apart, but distric lines are as far out as 20+/- miles.? Just wondering

The good news, Now ALL grade levels will have the same cirriculum (sp? I need more in the area of spelling )

Thank you so much for a great response. Haven't looked at anything yet but really appreciate your efforts....

I totally agree that meetings should be (and are probably required by your state law to be) open to the public, published ahead of time, and include input from the public sector.

Try looking up these websites:

National Association of Elementary School Principals
National Center for Educational Statistics
The Small Schools Workshop
The Rural Schools and Community Trust

They contain a lot of valuable information about school configurations, statistics of performance, and more. Also try the National PTA website ; you may find some info there about open meetings, sharing information, and including the public in important decisions.

I can say that my district is very fortunate to have a superintendent who is committed to including the public in the major decisions we are facing. She has made every effort to hear concerns and apply as much of what she has gathered as possible to the process of determining what to do with our buildings.

Since my last post, I have heard the new proposal and met with my principal and superintendent. This is probably the best proposal put forth with regards of the best utilization of our buildings and has the most educational benefits for our children.

Communication with the decision-makers is very important as an advocacy group for children. I wish you luck and if I think of any other sites or come across any articles, I will be sure to forward them along to you.

I appreciate what all of you have to say but you do not know the whole story because I didn't want to get into that battle in this forum. But quickly; our schools are overcrowded, the school administration has held secret discussions and tried to push this through without notification, withheld monies ($10 million - enough to build a new school)and told teachers to keep their mouths shut. We have actually had to request information under the "freedom of information" Act. We are a community of successful schools because of parent involvement and they tried to keep us out of this most importatnt decison. Our need now is for peer reviewed articles to present to a committee (that we fought for but was hand picked by the superintendent and tried to hold meetings is private again). We are not against change but we feel strongly there should be open discussion and points from both sides. The administration will only accept peer review articles. We will take them on either side. Are there journals out there we can look to?

As an aside:

It is well-known that socio-economic status is used as a determining factor when assessing achievement scores. A sad fact of our society is that children who live in poverty, and especially poverty-stricken neighborhoods, tend to score lower and pose more behavioral problems in the classroom than their middle-class counterparts.

The reasons? There are many, but these children tend to spend more time alone (working parents, single working mothers) and have less of a support network. Alcohol and drug use tend to increase in the adults in this group, and educational success, sadly, is often not a priority; parents will "groom" their child for the working world because they may think college is "out of reach" or not a reality for them. For some, there simply is no reason other than a sad societal cycle.

Socio-economic status (calculated by the # of children qualifying for Free and Reduced Priced Meals or FARMs) is also a determining factor in a school's Title I status, which was formed on the basis of providing quality educations in even the poorest of our nation's schools - yes, because every child deserves a quality education.

It may not politically correct to say so, but it is statistically accurate to note that the socio-economic status of the neighborhood in which a child is raised can be a determining factor in the academic success and behavior of a child.

My school district is facing similar, but opposite reconfiguration decisions that may come as early as Tuesday (going from two Pk-2, 3-5 schools and one pk-5(also Nat'l Blue Ribbon) to all pk-5). NCLB has nothing to do with it however.

We are consolidating because we are at risk of losing crucial state dollars; our schools are under-enrolled, some less than 50% under capacity, and others 30-40% under. If our district does not come up with a plan to fill the buildings in accordance with state-rated capacities, we could lose 80% funding for building improvements (which is greatly needed in the face of $56 mil in renovations). I am not happy about it - the newest proposal especially (we have gone round and round about different configurations in the upper grades, pros & cons, benefits & drawbacks, but lack of public support won't allow for it)- but one fact remains:

No plan can or will be successful without community support. We have a responsibility to work with the district to ensure any new configurations (whether we like them or not) are beneficial to our kids because it is only our children who suffer when we work to see that efforts fail only so we can say "I told you so." And I think this applies no matter what district you live in, or the reasons for the reconfigurations.

I would advise you to check into the reasons for the reconfigurations and try to work with your district instead of against them. It could very well be (not knowing your district enrollment or grade sizes)that there are not enough children to fill three sets of K-4 and still be in compliance with certain state regulations.