POTTSTOWN PA – About 200 people turned out Tuesday night (Dec. 6, 2011) to voice their opinions on Pottsgrove School District redistricting proposals to the Board of School Directors, and a majority – according to The (Pottstown PA) Mercury newspaper – seemed to turn down a plan that would create grade-grouped educational centers at three elementary school buildings as a way to balance the student population and gain teaching efficiencies.
What district administrators refer to as their “centers model” would establish two kindergarten through second grade groups at Ringing Rocks and West Pottsgrove elementary schools, and one of grades 3-5 at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary. Newly renovated Ringing and Lower, a former middle school campus, have an abundance of classroom space, while pupil seats at West have been in increasingly shorter supply.
Many of those who spoke told directors they considered the centers approach a too-radical change. Instead, The Mercury reported, they preferred to have the district even out class sizes by redrawing attendance boundaries and more simply determine where students would attend schools under current K-5 grade configurations.
Centers model advocates, who Tuesday appeared to be in the minority, argued it would improve learning by giving students greater access to teachers and resources. Opponents contended the centers represented an “experiment” that lacked sufficient research to prove them worth considering.
- Read a story by reporter Evan Brandt, titled “Crowd cool to proposal for Pottsgrove elementary centers” and published Wednesday (Dec. 7) by The Mercury, here.
Related (to Pottsgrove School District redistricting):
- Pottsgrove Crowd Vocal In Opposing Educational Centers
- Advocate: Pottsgrove Centers ‘Best Access’ To Resources
- Debate Over Pottsgrove Redistricting Gets Started Tuesday
- No Matter What Plan Pottsgrove Adopts, Buses Ready
- Redistricting Info ‘Slanted,’ Pottsgrove Volunteers Charge
- Pottsgrove Redistrict Discussions Quietly Move Ahead
- In Pottsgrove, Redistricting Study Work Gets Started
- Pottsgrove Sets Dates For Redistrict Committee Work
- As Expected, Interest A’Plenty In Pottsgrove Redistricting
- Landis Calls For Pottsgrove Redistricting Volunteers
- Touchy Pottsgrove Redistricting Now Being Considered
After being a part of the redistricting committee and a parent of 2 children in the Pottsgrove Elementary schools I believe that most parents and teachers who are “against” a centers idea have not taken the time to do research or have not listened to substantial research and case studies that have been done.
Each parent wants the best for their children and not everyone will ever agree on one single approach. What parents should do is set aside the emotions and remember that the education of our children come first. Children are very resilient at the ages in elementary and primary grades. This type of a change for them (not matter what happens) will generally not have an effect on them. Parents should remain positive to their children no matter what happens; negative parents/teachers will have a negative effect on a child.
In addition, if a simple redrawing of boundary lines is done; it would have to be done again within 3 years based upon predicted statistical information provided by the state on enrollment numbers. Those numbers can easily change at any given time, so a boundary line change may only work for another year or so. No one can predict perfectly how many children will be in any given grade at any time. This is one reason why this is a hot topic for the district. They do not want to have to make changes to boundary lines every couple of years. They want a long term approach to ensuring even class sizes, resources utilized appropriately, budgets for staff and a plan in to incorporate higher learning and specialized instruction that is not currently offered to students.
I encourage parents to look at both options before condemning one or the other. While I am in favor of a centers based approach I am still looking at research. I have created a Facebook page titled “Pottsgrove Redistricting Informational Site“. This page is for informational purposes only for both sides of the topic. We will have discussions and questions and hopefully be able to provide some much needed information at a time of uncertainty. Consider looking at all information on both sides prior to making up your mind. Too often already I have seen biases for one side or another with nothing from reputable sources to back it up, or that parent or teacher just went along with others.
P.S. Now transitioning into middle school and high school is a different topic. There are many studies done that conclude that the age of a child going into Middle school actually is the worst time to move a student into a new environment because of puberty, self esteem, etc. But that is a topic for another year.
Danielle, thanks for this most recent comment and the notice on your special Facebook page. Both are appreciated.
I must also give Kudo’s to the board for enduring some bulling tactics used by some at the meeting. As humans we can all be over emotional; As adults we should behave more appropriately.
The bulling and ridiculing that happened by some parents at the meeting towards the board was disgusting in my opinion. You can still get your point across without making false acusations and setting bad example for the children that were in atendance.
So good job to the Board for remaining professional!!!
Thanks to everyone who attended last night’s meeting and special thanks to those parents, on both sides of the issue, who voiced their opinions. In the spirit of the petition that was delivered to the board by the West Pottsgrove PTO, I have created a Facebook group:
Pottsgrove Parents Against Creating K-2 and 3-5 Centers. Here is a link: http://www.facebook.com/groups/322462381100258/
If you are against the grade centers proposal, please take a moment to join this group. We can use this as a forum to demonstrate that the opposition to this proposal is greater than the turnout at last night’s board meeting. Let’s use our connections to other parents to show the board just how many of us are against this plan!
Rick, as with Danielle earlier, thanks for this most recent comment and the notice on your special Facebook page. Both are appreciated.
Being professional???
Don’t confuse the fact that the school board obviously elected to refrain from comment or even answer some very simple direct questions and being professional. Not saying anything is not an act of professionalism. Not saying anything is what an attorney tells their client’s to do in an attempt to not self incriminate. Honestly the board had been going over this for weeks and after all that time they are so confident in their position that they elected to refrain from comment. And yes I said it, we all heard it, the gentleman who was one of the 37 volunteer panel said the board from the onset of the study of options was leaning towards the centers.
The school board is taking a very simple situation and manufacturing a whole new host of problems. They should spend their time working on the few (6 cons according to their report) problems with our present system and improve on them rather then redistrict and disrupt 1400 students and manufacture new problems with the centers model (21 cons according to their report).
I have 4 children that are either in the Upper Pottsgrove school system or have graduated from it and they are thriving because of a few very basic factors. First our teachers in Ringing Rocks and Upper Pottsgrove middle and High school are very good at what they do. In every group you will always have the best and the worst of that group but over all our teachers are more than or adequately qualified.
Secondly as a parent I do not believe that the sole responsibility of my children succeeding in school rest with the teachers. They are in my opinion only half of the team. The other half is my wife and I. We are equally if not more responsible for our children’s love of learning and appreciation for education and what that education can provide for them.
When my children get home from school they put their back packs down, wash their hands and face, have a snack if they would like one and my wife or I go through their folders and talk about the work they brought home and what they learned and then they do their home work before they play or watch TV.
If we have schools that are not doing well my guess is that one of these or both of these parts of the team are not carrying their load.
Either the teachers are remiss in their duties or the parents are not following through with their duties once their children get home. That is what needs to be looked at and until someone has the courage to do so the problem in a failing school will never truly be fixed.
You can redistrict and cut and paste all you want to try and hide the problem, mask the problem, dilute the problem and make it appear that scores have improved but if anything you will create a perception of balance.
Putting my daughters and other achieving students in a class room with children who are not achieving is more then likely not going to make the under achieving students raise their hands and participate. It is not going to make them fall in love with learning.
It most certainly will not make their parents sit with them and do their home work when they get home. The only thing that can fix that is mostly the parents of the under achieving students and the teachers. The answer is not to disrupt 1400 children.
Implement programs that reward those who do their home work, have more quizzing of the previous days work to shorten the cycle of the transfer and use of information between the teacher and the students. This will keep the risk of frailer on a shorter leash. Take the expected higher fuel costs from redistricting and depending on the amount spend it on a few teachers or aids to assist in the struggling school.
The facts are that we have 2 elementary schools that are doing very well and one that is not. The answer is to work on finding what factors are causing the underachievement and address them. There is no need to turn the whole district up side down and side ways to fix this. That is why I do not trust the motives of this school board.
And until they can provide a solid simple explanation as to why the only way we can achieve 3 successful elementary schools is to dismantle the student body of the other two that are succeeding and inconvenience and stress out our children then I stand on my statement that something about this smells bad and that this is “Lipstick on a Pig”.
Oh and by the way School Board let me, a parent of 3 of the 1400 children, judge how resilient my children are. That is definitely not your job.
Ryan, thanks very much for adding to the discussion!