DEAR EDITOR:
I remember how heartsick I felt in March of 1999 after many of
us had fought and lost what we thought was a noble battle.
DEAR EDITOR:
I remember how heartsick I felt in March of 1999 after many of us had fought and lost what we thought was a noble battle. Maybe it’s small potatoes to some, but to me, keeping the sixth grade children at elementary school represented everything I believed in. My time, my energies, my devotion were with my sixth grade students almost as much, at times more, than with my own children. I thought I was a pretty good candidate to help spearhead the drive to keep these 10- and 11-year-olds at a school with others like them rather than to place them in middle schools where adolescent concerns were far more likely to stray into areas that leave childhood behind.
After all, in addition to teaching sixth graders, I had my own sixth-grade child at the time, and my three older kids had recently proceeded up through the ranks of Gilroy elementary and junior high schools. I felt like I knew a lot about the very different needs of pre-adolescents and adolescents.
It seemed as though we would win the fight opposing the middle school task force’s recommendation. Nearly everything was on our side: the majority of parents, students, and community members conveyed via survey results and passionate speeches that they were strongly opposed to the concept of sixth graders being moved to the middle schools. Results of GUSD standardized tests showed that sixth-grade elementary was scoring higher than any other grade level in the district. We were facing a $2 million budget shortfall, and building a new middle school would cost $8 million more than a new elementary school, plus several hundred thousand per year more to run.
And finally, out of the 31 task force members, only 10 voted for the change to the 6-8 configuration, five opposed it, and 16 of the original members did not vote.
In spite of all this and the task force’s presentation of a minority dissenting opinion, the Board voted 4-3 to go ahead with the plan to move sixth graders.
During the next years when the middle school was being built and readied for full implementation, I decided to choose the attitude of acceptance and optimism.
Then I read about something in January in a Dispatch column that changed things. Solarsano, the new middle school, was going to open in August, housing Eliot students and sixth graders, but it wasn’t going to be a middle school! I knew it wasn’t going to be a middle school because during that long battle, the task force and the district had repeated adamantly that a middle school must have at least three grade levels.
When we had said, “Go ahead and implement the middle school philosophy – just do it without moving the sixth graders – have your program with 7th and 8th graders,” the response was that this would be impossible without the vertical slice of at least three grades (6-8 or 7-9). This was needed in order for the students to receive all the middle school benefits: flexible scheduling, allowance for the possibility of students to move into different grade levels for certain subjects; availability of individual student counseling, specialization of teaching, and teachers trained in the middle school philosophy.
Please be aware that the same argument can’t be used to substantiate two opposite viewpoints!
Last night I was at a meeting, and a parent made a statement something like, “Get used to it. The middle schools are happening.”
In my mind, first, the Board has some thinking and justification to do. Yes, the plan has been a “go” for four years. The problem is, there has been a huge change in a part of the equation, so the solution must be different.
The change is that since Eliot will be housed at Solarsano until 2005-6, there is not room for grades 6-8 … not room for a middle school at Solarsano. So, the Board should face and wrestle with the fact that GUSD is not yet ready for full middle school implementation! The Board made a promise and commitment to the community that it can’t fulfill, according to its own definition of middle school. Just because Solarsano is being called a middle school and it has some elements of one, it can not be one at this time.
The Board will hear words that tell why we should be able to think of Solarsano as a middle school, but can the Board guarantee the evidence and fulfillment of these well-intended words? The Board will hear of the normalcy of a phased-in middle school, but in one of the original task force member’s words (who voted in favor of the 6-8 configuration), “This current situation is appalling. This was never what we envisioned. We had said the change should not occur until there could be complete and total inclusion of all the elements of a middle school program.”
While awaiting the new middle school’s readiness, sixth graders have been attending school at some elementary schools, and Brownell, and South Valley. Solarsano still is not ready. The status quo should remain for sixth graders. In the paraphrased words of union president, Michelle Nelson, “What’s the problem with waiting to make the full move until Solarsano can house 6-8th graders?” I have to agree with Michelle: what is the rush?
Keeping sixth graders at elementary helps to solves many problems, such as overcrowding at the middle schools. Brownell and South Valley already have well over the ideal number of 800 students. Why would we increase those numbers when the elementary schools have housed sixth graders quite well? The debacle of students who are being torn from their elementary cohorts would also be addressed.
If we wait until Eliot leaves Solarsano, more of the elementary students would be coming from attendance area schools and would be able to move with their friends. Another plus is that any parent who wants his child to go to sixth grade at the middle school would still have that choice. And with the district’s plan to implement accelerated classes at the middle schools, those students who are coming from an elementary school without this kind of challenge would now have that option.
Board members should really think about the wisdom of delaying this change until all ducks are in order and the meat of the original promise can be fulfilled.
Sue Gamm, Gilroy
Submitted Wednesday, Feb. 12 to ed****@ga****.com
