Schools

Middle School Schedule And High Class Sizes To Be Rectified

Fitch Middle School To Pilot New Schedule To Be Used In October

Only three education board members were able to make Monday's meeting and without a quorum, board members opened up the floor to parents and residents, who filled the available seats and vocalized concerns about the new middle school schedule and the high student to teacher ratio in second grade classes in Northeast Academy.

"There are a couple factors that come into play," Kadri said about class sizes in the second grade at Northeast Academy, which are approximately 25 students to one teacher, excluding students who need special education. "We're susceptible to wild fluctuations in class size."

Kadri said the school has a catchment area that was defined for a school with a larger student body than than the building was actually built for and that this year the district had some unexpected additions to the second grade.

"We just had a very unusual circumstance with a lot of people moving into the town with second graders." Kadri said it's common for people to enroll new students at the beginning of the school year and that he didn't know about the additional second graders until after the first day of school.

Groton resident Matt Forde, who has a child in Northeast Academy took issue with the second grade class size.

"We all want to ensure that our children get the best education," he said. "How are we going to differentiate between the children, how can you ensure to people in the Northeast Academy and to other schools that we we're going to get the best education for our children?"

Kadri said possible solutions to reduce class size at Northeast Academy include using a language arts coach to teach an additional class, which would bring the ratio down to 19 or 20 students per teacher, or to send some students to S.B. Butler.

"It was below 25 (students) to one (teacher) before the beginning of the year," Kadri said of initial enrollment figures for Northeast Academy. "This is unheard of that everybody moved into the second grade."

Kadri said grades in the Catherine Kolnaski Magnet School and Pleasant Valley Elementary School are in the same predicament and "we're having this conversation about two other schools in the district."

Parents were also concerned about middle school students' new class schedules, which have yet to be clarified to administrators, teachers students and their parents.

Groton resident Bobby Jo Cini stood to say that her daughter, who is in seventh grade, is in the "fourth week of school and she has four different schedules." Sini said she was concerned because her daughter hasn't had Spanish in five days due to conflicts with the band schedule.

Kadri, who has re-drafted the middle school schedule, admitted to making a mistake in setting aside the wrong block of time for middle school teachers to collaborate and confer without taking away from instructional time. Kadri said that the confusion in the  middle schools did not affect the core classes.

"We have got to get the most out of our resources and staff is a resource," said Kadri of the schedule. "The whole idea is to align our resources."

Kadri said the new schedule gives the same free block of time to math and science teachers, for instance, and students who are having trouble in those subjects with remedial teachers in order to help students or to teach enrichment in those areas. He said the initial confusion was due to inherent complexities of the middle school schedules.

Warrine Kavenaugh, an eighth grade social studies teacher said, "my concern is that I definitely feel this schedule is not as beneficial to our eighth grade students as the one we had last year. The poor kids travel together in this plan through all these classes and they don't get the opportunity to socialize as eighth graders like to do, it's really, really not beneficial to them at all."

"The teachers didn't see it soon enough to learn it," said Brian Shirvell, chairman of the education board. "And, obviously there were some glitches in it too."

Kadri said Fitch Middle School will pilot the 23rd iteration of the school schedule, and if all goes well, it will be in place by Oct. 19.

Another item addressed at the meeting was a concern that students weren't allowed enough time to drink water during school hours.

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Groton resident Marian Johnson said she would pull her children out of the public system if they are not given enough time to drink water while they're in school.

"They don't drink enough (water)," she said of her two children. "They have eye rings – eye rings – by the time they come home on Friday. I'm ready to take them out of the public system, it's not (that the education is insufficient) it's about health, mental and physical."

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Johnson wanted to know if water bottles are allowed in the classrooms and recommended that parents become more aware of their childrens' hydration levels.

"We need more hydration in schools," she repeated.

Kadri said he'd revisit the district's policy regarding water bottles in the classroom and didn't immediately object to having them on-hand. 

"I don't see why not," he said of having certain types of bottles in the classroom. "I know that during testing we usually give out bottled water at the snack bar."


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