CONSIDERATIONS FOR RETAINING ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND REPLACEMENT OF 6th GRADE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
BY SKOT DAVID WILSON
“A Discussion”
TO: DUVAL COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD
JANUARY 2009
BACKGROUND & DISCUSSION: Duval County Public Schools (DCPS) is considering closing small neighborhood schools as a savings measure to meet budget constraints. DCPS has already closed, in recent years, several small schools, and in so doing has violated the provisions of the Florida Class Size Reduction Act (FCRA). Some of these closings and elements of these closings have been willful illegal acts, since it is a crime to circumvent and violate the law by intent. The FCRA stipulates target student/teacher ratios of 18/1 for grades K-3 and 22/1 for grades 4-8. DCPS has used “co-teaching” models to skirt the law and feign compliance, but the FCRA is specific in that it requires school districts to maximize use of existing facilities and not add additional transportation, which it will be shown adds excessive and unnecessary costs to the district. Further, closing small schools, normally elementary schools which have served as community and social anchors to many neighborhoods, reduces property values, allows for increased criminal activity, breaks social bonds that unite communities and fosters friendships, and creates travel and other hardships while inhibiting the factors that promote student performance, which is the overall target of the FCRA.
In 2004, after years of threat of closure, withholding of resources and destructive redistricting, DCPS closed Normandy Elementary, an “A” school, and sent those students to Ramona Elementary, which had and has more instances of student violence, lower performance, and also contributed to overcrowding at surrounding elementary districts, notably Crystal Springs, which has a FCRA target capacity of apx 1014 students, but has kept 1,350 to 1,430 students in enrollment in clear violation of the FCRA. DCPS was brought to court but the case was dismissed without prejudice prior to the vote to close and due to Urban League Head Start using the facility litigation was suspended due to there being a clear need by Head Start pre-K needing a facility. The closure of Normandy was projected to save DCPS $180,000.00, but busing, which had not thereunto been needed, added an additional $150.000.00 in busing costs, rendering any savings virtually moot. The closure also brought ruin to the Normandy neighborhood's sense of community and contributed to increased crime while terminating an “A” school in favor of a “C” school. Low enrollment was the justification for the closure, but DCPS redistricted by design to justify a later closing and did so with malice to the Normandy community. DCPS targets having elementary school populations of 700 plus and sees that as cost effective, but the long term effects of having bigger, lower performing schools with diminished sense of community and ability to identify and address the needs of students has long term costs to society. This in turn increases the drop out rate and effects the overall skills and social values of students, who become adults without the education they need to function and progress in society or the workplace, and also increase crime, all of which have excessive long term costs that reach far beyond the apparent fiscal year budgets school systems deal with.
Still further, 6th grade students are placed in middle schools, which have higher student populations, and where children who are 11 & 12 are exposed to and associate with students who are 14, 15, 16, and some, who have been left back, even older. This places peer pressures of sexual conduct, drug use and abuse, and violence upon mere children.
While it may be justified to close a poorly performing, under-enrolled elementary school, it is both proven and shown that neighborhood schools promote positive social growth and sense of community and purpose, parental involvement, and better performing schools and students. If there is a school which has to be subsidized due to under-enrollment that school can retain their 6th grade students, bringing capitalization to that distressed school, making it more cost effective, and allowing students in such a critical transitional stage to retain their childhood a little longer, allowing them also to become better students, and moreover better citizens.
While cost considerations make a target of 700-800 students for elementary schools and 1,200-1,400 for middle schools lucrative, the resulting graduation rates, levels of violence, drug use, sexual conduct, and diminished education levels of high school students, and that impact upon society, makes it unwise to say the least. Elementary schools should not exceed 600 students, and middle schools not exceed 900 students, and elementary schools should retain 6th grade students wherever and whenever possible in order to better identify problems with students, serve their educational and socialization concerns, and promote discipline.
DCPS recently recommended closing three elementary schools, namely Joseph Finegan, West Jacksonville, and Wesconnett. While DCPS withdrew the two former, the later is still recommended for closure. Wesconnett was very recently recognized as a Blue Ribbon school, one of the best in the nation (Florida Times Union 2002) and has an 80 year history and legacy. It is a well built and inviting campus, and produced “A” ratings virtually every year. Children attending there are slated to go 2/3 to Cedar Hills and 1/3 to Oak Hill, and both will become overcrowded with such a closure, and this will clearly violate the provisions of Amendment 9 FCRA. Further, both schools do not perform as well as Wesconnett, and will have to cannibalize rooms that now serve as learning and reading labs, music, art and other rooms and student services that are critical to a well rounded education.
The problem of Wesconnett not being a “profitable” (cost effective) school can be solved by Wesconnett retaining their 5th grade into 6th, bringing it back up to capacity, reducing overcrowding at middle schools, and protecting the innocence, safety concerns, and development and educational concerns of those students.
FINDINGS & SUPPORTING DATA: A basic web search will produce a wealth of information on the subject of grade configuration. Overall, there seems to be a universally recognized problem of placement of 6th grade students with older students and problems when students make transitions, and as a result there is a movement in the educational community for a return to K-6 & K-8 configurations. School districts who do return to these configurations notice improvement in student performance, a reduction in discipline problems, and better school attendance to note just a few results and observations.
Where the problem of underfunded, under enrolled schools is concerned, it is clear that returning 6th grade to elementary settings will provide funding to distressed schools and reduce shortfalls that would otherwise mandate them to be subsidized to compensate for low enrollment. Returning 6th grade to a K-6 configuration solves that problem while it provides a safer, sounder learning environment for children who are simply not ready for a transition out of childhood. A 7-2-4 or 7-3-3 configuration allows students to make best use of environments available to them, and makes more manageable students and student populations in middle and high schools. Both good and bad elements of student behavior are learned and passed onto lower grades yearly, and removal of younger students from settings they are not ready for is proven to have benefits. Some of the web addresses for supportive documentation are:
1.
RECOMMENDATION: Wesconnett Elementary should be retained, and no schools should be closed unless they are performing below a “D” rating, or a steady “C” rating if the school is under enrolled by 60%, has an enrollment of under 180 students (apx), and circumstances fully warrant closure. No schools that are scoring “A”s or “B”s should be closed.
Student populations should be targeted for 400-600 for elementary schools, 700-1,000 for middle schools, and 6th grade should be retained at and returned to an elementary setting. This will provide additional funding to elementary schools that may be distressed financially, and maximize student enrollment at under enrolled elementary schools.
It is clear that long standing neighborhood schools serve as a community anchor, especially in Jacksonville, which, due to consolidation, has lost many of the elements that unite and bind members of a local area community. This will also reduce vastly the additional costs involved in transportation of students, which can be excessive. Each bus route represents about 20 students in budgetary costs, so that money can be directed into education instead of transportation.
Lastly, DCPS should, and by law must, comply with the Florida Class Size Reduction Act, and will avoid fines and litigation associated with willfully and knowingly breaking the law, as well as any criminal elements to such violations if they are designed and planned. DCPS must also not engage in creative redistricting in order to justify school closings at later dates.
The last element should be removing suspension as a discipline tool and replacing it, wherever and whenever possible, with in school detention. Students will make infractions in order to get suspension “vacations”, so there must be no reward for bad behavior, and there needs to be a parental accountability contingent to this course of action as well.
It is my sincere hope to avoid the problems associated with the closing of small neighborhood schools and that this document be considered based upon the merit of the arguments contained herein. While there is difficulty that is appreciated in dealing with severe budget shortfalls, shortsighted and damaging decisions should be avoided at all costs, as it is commonly accepted and understood that once kids reach high school their learning behaviors are for the most part set, and if problems are to be avoided they must be addressed at the most primary levels.
Respectfully and Humbly Submitted,
Skot David Wilson
6724 Cherbourg Avenue South
Jacksonville, Florida 32205
(904) 619-8324
skotdavidwilson@yahoo.com
Short Points
*Research and observation indicates and proves students perform better in K-6 through K-8 settings, have less discipline problems, show better attendance, and suffer less stress.
*Under enrolled elementary schools will increase their student population and as such have a bigger budget with which to work, due to receiving money on a per student basis, making them more cost effective to operate by retaining 6th grade students.
*Not transporting 6th grade students, and not busing the populations of closed elementary schools, will produce significant cost savings.
*Removing 6th grade from middle school will reduce overcrowding within those schools, allowing staff and administration to better focus on and address the discipline, emotional and academic problems of students in those grades.
*Florida law is specific in reducing class size, not closing facilities, and not adding any unnecessary or additional transportation (busing of students).
*Students learn behavior and values from older peers in addition to more traditionally recognized sources. Students make a significant transition when entering puberty, which is largely while they are in 6th grade. Problems associated with a transition into puberty are reduced by retaining 6th grade students in a elementary setting, which sets patterns which produce benefits as students age and enter higher grades.
