Parents and teachers in the Morgan Hill School District spoke
out Monday night during the regular School Board meeting, telling
trustees they hoped the district would take steps now to prevent a
repeat next year of the annual student shuffle between classes and
schools as the district makes adjustments after the school year has
begun.
Parents and teachers in the Morgan Hill School District spoke out Monday night during the regular School Board meeting, telling trustees they hoped the district would take steps now to prevent a repeat next year of the annual student shuffle between classes and schools as the district makes adjustments after the school year has begun.
What made this year different was the timing; students were not moved until Monday, the beginning of the fifth week of classes.
“We are four weeks into the school year, and the district is moving kindergartners,” Mark Hall, a parent of three children who started the school year at P.A. Walsh Elementary, told trustees Monday night. “I have talked to the district, everybody has been responsive, but nothing seems to be getting done.”
Hall said the lack of warning from the district gave parents little time to prepare students for the changes.
“We were given notice on Wednesday that our children would be in a new class, possibly a new school, on Monday,” he said.
Student transfers are nothing new to the district. Last year, 40 students were moved, but the move took place just after the second week of school. The year before, 26 were moved the first full week of school; and at the beginning of the 2001/2002 school year, 125 students were moved.
In past years, the district has created combined-grade classes at some schools so students will not have to be moved from their home school.
Although trustees do not usually respond to public comment – topics not on the agenda – Trustee Shellé Thomas said Monday night she would like the topic to be addressed.
“Can we maybe look at this as the year goes on, on how to have a better way of managing this, I know there’s been so much confusion, so it doesn’t happen again,” Thomas said.
Hall, who said he and his family just moved to Morgan Hill, asked trustees to look at the situation at a future board meeting.
“I’d like to get this on an agenda to discuss this,” he said. “Possibly consider starting school later. Right now, we don’t know what to do to rectify the situation. We intend on staying here, and we don’t want this to happen next year.”
District officials have said they typically wait until after Labor Day to level class loads because some students don’t return from summer vacation until then. They have said this year, Labor Day on Sept. 6 was “late,” which is why students were not moved until after they had spent four weeks in one class.
Assistant Superintendent Arlene Machado said earlier that next year, the district would not wait until after Labor Day to move students.
Parents weren’t the only ones distressed with the situation. Two kindergarten teachers from Barrett Elementary told trustees moving students so far into the school year was very disruptive.
Kristiana Kammann, one of the Barrett kindergarten teachers, told trustees she and her fellow teachers support the 20:1 ratio in the lower grades that is at the root of much of the shuffling around of students, but the major complaint is the timing.
The district gets funding from the state for having reduced class size at the K-3 grade levels.
“We started the year with 17 kids in four kindergarten classes (17 per class),” she told trustees. “So that one class could be dissolved, eight students were moved to new schools, and 16 students were moved to other classes, some from morning to afternoon and vice versa … We value the ratio, but we are concerned why (the changes) came so late.”
The relationship a student, particularly a kindergarten student, develops with his or her teacher is very important, said Kammann.
“The teacher takes a role just one step below the parent,” she said. “We have worked so hard to establish rituals and routines in our classrooms … Maybe we need to start our school year later, like after Labor Day. We hope this is taken care of much earlier in the school year; students are not just ID numbers and teachers are not just a payroll drain.”
Machado said earlier that parents new to the district are required to sign a release when they register their students; she said the release makes it clear to parents the initial placements are “temporary.”
The memorandum of understanding, as it is titled, does make it clear that placement is at the discretion of the district, but does not use the word “temporary”:
“My child’s placement will be made with his/her greatest potential for success as the primary criteria. It is not possible to place students based upon individual/daycare schedules. Every attempt will be made to place new students at their school of residence. However, the district cannot guarantee such placement, and reserves the right to place new students at other schools within the Morgan Hill Unified School District as necessary when a grade-level enrollment capacity is reached. Any student placed involuntarily at a school other than their school of residence will be placed on a waiting list in priority order by date of initial registration, and will be given the option to return to their school of residence as openings occur. I/We understand that placement is based on district-wide enrollment criteria.”
In another district transfer situation, 41 students remain on the waiting list to go to Live Oak High School; all the requests for transfer to the new Sobrato High were granted, according to Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini.
Some students placed in the Sobrato boundary area when lines were drawn last year requested transfers because they already had a sibling at Live Oak, because of proximity to the school, because of sports or band and for a variety of other reasons. School Board trustees, when they voted on the boundaries, made it clear they wanted all transfer requests between the two schools granted because this was an unusual, one-time situation.
Tognazzini said it is not likely that the remaining 41 transfers to Live Oak would be granted now. a month into the school year.
