More than two dozen families roughed the cold weather and some
slept on the pavement overnight at Nordstrom Elementary to turn in
registration papers by 8 a.m. Thursday, mostly for kindergarten
classes.
More than two dozen families roughed the cold weather and some slept on the pavement overnight at Nordstrom Elementary to turn in registration papers by 8 a.m. Thursday, mostly for kindergarten classes.
The line formed at the front office around 8:30 p.m Wednesday and by registration time Thursday morning, 85 families were in line to register their children for the public elementary school on East Dunne Avenue.
Nordstrom is the highest achieving school in the Morgan Hill Unified School District based on API test scores, but it’s also highly impacted with few openings for new students.
A woman who answered the phone at Nordstrom Thursday afternoon said parents camp out because they “really want to make sure that they have a spot.” She also said that the overnight waiting is a common scene on the dawn of school registration.
According to the Nordstrom front office, 85 registration packets were handed in with most looking for a spot in Nordstrom’s five kindergarten classes but a few were turned in for other grades.
Brian Fukumoto’s wife and child got to Nordstrom at 1 a.m. Thursday and were No. 30 in line.
“(My wife) waited out over night in 35-degree weather as she wanted to increase (our daughter’s) chance of being enrolled in the morning kindergarten (class),” Fukumoto wrote in an e-mail.
Nordstrom has produced the highest API scores in MHUSD with a score of 869 out of a possible 1,000 in 2008. Compared to other schools in California, Nordstrom was given a ranking of nine out of a possible 10 for that year.
Thursday was the first time any parents in the district could register their child for school. Every school in the district will accept packets through the end of the school year.
Nordstrom has two morning kindergarten classes and three in the afternoon, one of which is a combination class. With about 20 children in each classroom it leaves roughly 85 openings – just enough for everyone who bared the Thursday’s overnight lows.
“It looks like everybody is going to get in,” according to Nordstrom’s secretary. “Everything went smoothly.”
Next year, however, the structure of Nordstrom’s kindergarten through third-grade classes could change. Six teachers at Nordstrom will be issued layoff notices that could impact the kindergarten schedule, although it’s not known if any kindergarten teachers received a notice. The layoffs are part of the district’s effort to save money due to a $2.9 million budget shortfall. A total of 28 notices will be issued by today to elementary teachers across the district.
The district’s recommendation is to increase class sizes from 20 pupils to one teacher to 24 to one. If one kindergarten class is eliminated, such as Nordstrom’s combination class that is half kindergarten students, the class sizes would be under the 24 to one limit.
Fukumoto said most parents brought sleeping bags and blankets, and some had tents and portable heaters. He said the school provided coffee cake this morning and a mother who waited last year brought coffee for several people in line.
