Moving 4th and 5th Graders To Renfroe
Decatur Metro | December 20, 2008CSD Mom sends along a note that details the the current recommendation of the school system’s Reconfiguration Committee. In a nutshell – regardless of annexation, the CSD should move 4th and 5th graders to Renfroe after building an addition for the 2010-2011 school year.
Here are the details with and without annexation thrown into the mix.
Recommendation offered to the superintendent
After extensive learning, dialogue, and consensus-building, the committee offers the following recommendation:
Without Annexation
Option 12 (new option offered 11.19.08)
Keep current configurations for the 2009-2010 school year, adding any necessary mobile units at Clairemont, Oakhurst, and Winnona Park, in order to prepare for Option 9 Make Glennwood a K3, move 4/5 to a building expansion on the Renfroe campus for the 2010-2011 school yearWith Annexation
Option 12
Keep current configurations for the 2009-2010 school year, adding any necessary mobile units at Clairemont, Oakhurst, and Winnona Park, in order to prepare for either Option 9 Make Glennwood a K3, move 4/5 to a building expansion on the Renfroe campus for the 2010-2011 school year, or Option 8 (if Option 9 will not meet annexation needs) Make Glennwood and Westchester K3s, move 4/5 to a building expansion on the Renfroe campus for the 2010-2011 school yearTimeline:
a. Superintendent presents multiple options to Board of Education
for February 10, 2009 meeting
b. Board of Education conducts informational sessions and public
hearings (if needed) end of February
c. Board of Education votes on action item March 10, 2009
i’m coming in late on this discussion & apologize if this is a stupid question – but do any of these reconfiguration models include doing anything with 5th Ave. Elementary? i’m sure it needs a ton of work – but if they got started on it…
i dont like the idea of putting 4th & 5th graders with the junior high kids.
Oahurst mom… My husband and I were just discussing the possibility of having 2 4/5 academies. Why cant we use fifth avenue and glenwood as 4/5 academies and then having all the kids meet up at Renfroe?
my wife came home positively livid when she heard of this proposal. neither of us want to see 4th graders with junior high kids. we both plan on crafting emails to the board and superintendent voicing our opposition to this plan. in light of the economic downturn of late, i’m not sure we’ll get much traction.
The Renfroe building expansion can, and should, be designed in such a way that it creates two seperate and distinct campuses (what’s the plural of campus?). I guarantee the school board is sensitive the idea of throwing the 4/5s in with the middle school kids – in fact, the 4/5 academy concept was key to their entire strategic plan during the restructuring a few years ago. I doubt it would be killed this quickly.
To my mind, there is an obvious alternative that hasn’t made it onto the radar screen for some reason. Move 4/5 to Westchester.
Westchester has a big campus that can be added onto, unlike Glennwood, and the cost would be about the same as renovating Renfroe to turn it into two schools in one.
Why would we want two schools in one building — two start and stop times, two principles, etc, when we can just move 4/5 to Westchester? Does anyone see a problem with this?
I have heard from Renfroe parents that the grades are pretty segregated there – or at least that is the case for the 6th graders – they pretty much only come in contact with other 6th graders. I think I have heard that each grade has its own wing, or group of classrooms, so that the younger kids aren’t mixing with the older ones.
Westchester as a 4/5 works well especially since it has a large cafeteria and gym. You could put trailers at Westchester and open the 4/5 next year even without the addition. They’re talking about using trailers in the K-3 schools 2009-2010 anyway. One thing that stops people from talking about this is the estimated cost the superintendent gives for moving the central office out of Westchester. This has always seemed inflated to me and I bet it could be done pretty cheaply with parent involvement. Then the Central Office could be moved to Renfroe.
As a parent with a child at Glennwood, I like that concept. Having ALL kids come together in 4th grade seems smart. And I personally like the idea of 4-5 at Renfroe. The kids would be seperated from the middle school. Parents with more than 2 kids would have less campuses to visit. It opens up another K-3 for the east side of town without opening another school/campus. And I’m guessing there are some cost savings too. I say go for it.
I know that a great deal of time and effort has been put into looking at various options for reconfiguration. A committee was created with representatives from each school (staff members and parents). This committee met quite a few times to discuss options, building capacities, costs associated with each option, programs at each school (Expeditionary Learning at K-3, IB at 4-5) etc. Then each committee member was given a reconfiguration impact spreadsheet – the members had to answer a variety of questions (by ranking) for each scenario. From what I understand, this individual analysis took several hours to complete.
I understand that no one scenario is going to be perfect. However, I do feel confidant that whatever decision is made, a great deal of time and effort by a wide variety of people has been taken in making it.
The reconfiguration committee information can be found on the CSD website.
They will still all ride the buses home together! To me that’s worse than having them see each other during the school day.
At any rate, the board is a group of fickle, easily swayed people. Write enough letters and they’ll reconsider. They seem to change their minds once a week at least.
The Frasier Center parents inundated them with letters and emails and spoke up at meetings enough that the Board has reconsidered shuttering the Center as part of the budget cuts. That gives me hope that we can change their minds about this too.
This reconfig seems troubled. I’m not sure my neighborhood (MAK historic district) will be thrilled about a renovation to renfro — when we have Westchester sitting there.
Also agree that having 4th and 5th graders in with the middle school is wrong. I’ve a student in renfro, too — and although the grades are supposedly separated, it’s impossible to keep them completely apart.
Well, my guess is that they cannot fund the expansion of Renfroe to house 4/5 without another bond b/c the bond that we passed a few years ago was only for the gym, etc. at Renfroe and gym/field/theatre at DHS. The original bond won’t cover the cost of adding classrooms at Renfroe. Plus they are prohibited from using it for anything that wasn’t described when it was passed. I doubt SPLOST would cover the addition, and I think that SPLOST is already spoken for for several years.
If you don’t want Renfroe expanded to house 4/5… just vote against the bond…
Am I missing something? This is too simple, isn’t it.
Midi: I was at the last meeting of that committee, just as an observer, and I didn’t see the process leading up to it. At that meeting, the Westchester 4/5 option wasn’t adequately explained.
There was lengthy discussion of some options — including a large professional mock-up of what splitting Renfroe would look like — but nothing said at all about Westchester except that the admin benefited from being in one place. After most of the decision making process had taken place, someone asked about the Westchester 4/5 option — why it was even on there as an alternative to Glennwood 4/5. Then it was explained that was because W had room to expand. Then someone asked how much? Ans: The same as redoing Renfroe.
So, no I didn’t get the sense that that option was fully understood by all members of the committee. They were very conscientious and thoughtful, but they were confronted with 11 options, with new ones having been recently added. That’s a lot to process. And now that I think of it, Westcheter 4/5 was option 10 — therefore a late addition.
As a parent with kids who are in multiple schools I think this idea is HORRIBLE. While it might make it easier for me to get my kids to and from school, 4th graders and 8th graders are in very different places in their lives and should not share a campus in any way. I understand that there will be “seperate campuses,” but that does not take care of the issue. It seems a little early to expose 4th graders to the behaviour of Junior High kids milling about before and after classes. Of the 10-12 parents I have discussed this with it has ZERO support. Most are strongly against it.
Unfortunately, history has proven that what Phillis wants Phillis gets and it is my guess this is what Phillis wants. The School Board will never oppose her on anything and she has proven unyielding to public concern or discourse in the past. It will just be rubber stamped and spun in a press release unless those who oppose it get very vocal very quickly.
Its interesting how some folks go right to the ‘low road’ attitude. Thinking that older kids have a negative impact on the younger ones. Several years ago before the 4/5 academy happened, my then 5th grader tutored a 1st grader in reading. The impact seen was incredible with improved reading and academics. Not all bad things come from the combo of older and younger.
Rebecca: Personally, I like the idea of having multiple grades together as a general rule, but there is a reason that middle school (and before it, Jr high) has always separated from elementary school: adolescence.
But again, if 4/5 is worth keeping, we can easily keep it by moving it to Westchester. Moving to Renfroe is an idea born of desperation, not any educational purpose. But there’s no need for desperation, when there’s an obvious alternative.
Good point Rebecca. I agree in some ways. My 4th grader is great with younger kids. However, there is a reason that Jr High is for 6-8 grades. I think most would agree that that these are very transitional years for students and that social behavior and norms for 8th Graders and 4th Graders are very different. (IE: It makes sense yo have STD posters on the wall for Jr High kids. Not so sure the 4th Graders are ready for that yet).
In MANY communities K-12 is the rule. I grew up in a system that did K-8, then 9-12. While a long time ago, no problems. We were kept separate when needed.
I looked up to the older kids, and mentored the younger ones when I got older.
There’s something to that, Rebecca. Middle school to me seems sort of like the Projects: concentrated dysfunction. There’s a lot to be said for the presence of older role models and younger charges that can be beneficial, but I agree with everyone that such integration would need to be carefully managed.
As with a lot of things, the idea could go either way depending on execution.
Have they discussed moving the 8th grade to Decatur High if the 4/5 moves to Renfroe? This gives the kids a year of adjustment before grades count for college in 9th grade. That gives just 3 transitions. K-3, 4-7 (remember when elementary schools were K-7?), and 8-12. My high school was 7-12 and it was no big deal. Maybe you don’t even need to build an addition to Renfroe if the 8th grade moves out?
Still, no one has told me how the classroom/library/cafeteria addition to Renfroe will be funded. Does anyone know? To me that’s the most important piece. Our school system is apparently broke, but they have enough to build or finance the building of 22 classrooms? Where in the heck is this money coming from?
Last I checked when broke people borrowed a bunch of money… it didn’t work out well for them (or for the whole dern country). Has no one learned a lesson in all of this? You can’t borrow your way out of financial trouble, and it appears that CSD is about to do that.
We have lots of perfectly wonderful classrooms at Westchester. Move the admins the heck out and use them for kids – that is what they are meant for. Configure in a manner to accomplish that. All this reliance on some sort of magical configuration to solve all academic and social problems is hoppycock. Renfroe is better b/c the kids are better (thanks to changing demographics and fewer folks bailing for private school after 5th grade). Also, we have managed to actually maintain a principal (and a very effective one at that) for a couple of years.
We’ve done Glennwood and Renfroe before and after the reconfig.. Glenwood makes no difference in what goes on at Renfroe IMO. The kids have changed and the leadership there has changed.. that is the only thing that has made a difference.
And… no.. you don’t want your 9 year olds around large groups of 14 year olds.
Hmmm…..
“(IE: It makes sense to have STD posters on the wall for Jr High kids. Not so sure the 4th Graders are ready for that yet).”
It makes sense to have those posters in the school if all the parents are NOT doing their jobs.
And private school it is after Winnona Park!
Just a question … where should the administration move? And how much would this cost initially and annually? I am assuming space would have to be rented.
Midi:
a. Renfroe
b. 5th Ave.
c. Rent space
Cost of each option was mentioned at the reconfiguration meeting, but I can’t recall.
The mixing of different age groups was less of a impact when our society was different . Many children came from large families and knew how to behave and help care for the younger ones. In this society of one or two kids and them growing up and such a fast rate I don’t think that that was once a workable method would be good now. My daughter, since going to Renfroe this year, has stopped hanging out with the neighborhood younger kids that she once played with all the time. The interests are just to far apart now.
And if we want to start a discussion about the educational benefits of having a range of grades together, let’s start by talking about returning to K-5. But I really haven’t (until this thread) heard any argument for putting 4/5 in Renfroe based on educational benefits, but only out of a lack of other options (that is, ignoring Westchester 4/5). In fact, at the reconfiguration meeting we were being reassured as to how separate the two schools in one building would be. So even if you were looking for the (doubtful, in my view) benefit of having 9 year olds pal around with 14 year olds, that’s not the CSD plan.
Amazing! Blame the schools for what clearly is parental dysfunction! A 9 year old can only ‘pal’ around with a 14 year old in an open environment during time away from school, if allowed to. And, honestly, why is that always seen as bad? I grew up amongst older siblings, and because they were taught well by my parents, so was I. Also, Renfroe has improved for many reasons, better consistent leadership, the cleansing of bad teachers, and putting the children together at 4/5 has absolutely helped.
Who said a word about blaming the schools for anything?
Kindergarten – Fifth is the way to go. Small children need the security of attending one one school when they are young if at all possible. If I lived in Decatur, I would be lobbying the School Board members for K-5. I never understood the new configuration of the district. The use of Westchester for the administration bldg. makes absolutely no sense to me. Since I don’t live there, I don’t have a say. If I did, I would be very vocal about it. I am a former employee of CSD.
Please excuse the typo on neighbor.
Well, y’all can just give up on this school board ever reopening Westchester, especially as long as Dr. Edwards is in charge. They have too much baggage from the reconfiguration.
My neighbor is on an SLT and said that the reconfiguration meeting was very slanted to guide the reconfiguration committee to the conclusion that Dr. E wants them to have. He is quite disillusioned by the whole process.
Three school board slots are up for election this fall fyi. Let’s see some new candidates!
I can’t wait for them to be voted out! I wish we could get rid of Dr. E too.
I am also for K-5.
Let the administration work from home, or at least part of them. There have to be better solutions than taking up a gigantic building that was meant to be a school in a district starved for space.
csd mom, at the time the configuration was done, the system was not starved for space. why don’t you run if you think you could do better! these parents who do the school board are basically volunteers doing their best and taking undo crap from parents who stand by and do nothing but whine. dr edwards is imo a terrific leader who has done a fantastic job hiring good school leaders, and thus teachers. our system is currently a victim of it’s own success. since i don’t have a doctorate in educational administration i won’t cast stones. while the system isn’t perfect, it certainly is WAY better than thousands of others around this country.
I’m with you CSD Supporter. In the last 10 years my family has been here, the whole school system has improved. And it has to be a thankless job being on the school board listening to everyone else’s ‘better idea’.
Ditto CSD mom. The sneaky way they reconfigured the schools the last time proves they can’t be trusted.
From CSD Mom’s post above: “The Frasier Center parents inundated them with letters and emails and spoke up at meetings enough that the Board has reconsidered shuttering the Center as part of the budget cuts.”
Would anyone be able to give me details about the relationship between the Frazer Center and City of Decatur Schools? What the school funds/amount of funding? I looked on both CSD and Frazer websites with no luck.
Thanks!
Curious, I believe the Frasier Center refers to the two CSD pre-K classrooms that operate out of Decatur High rather than at College Heights (which I think has six). It’s all part of the same CSD pre-K program.
The Frasier Center is a daycare (birth-3) program that is housed in Decatur High. I believe it was originally created (with grant funds) for the main purpose of providing daycare for unwed teenage mothers – to reduce the dropout rate. The Frasier Center also provides daycare services for other community members (including teachers). The parents pay monthly for this service (the rates compare to other daycare centers).
In the four 09-10 Budget Proposal Options, listed at this site : http://www.decatur-city.k12.ga.us/fyi/fyi77.shtml
the Frasier Center was listed as one of the items to be cut next year, at a savings to the district of $61,000.
Interesting. Thanks for the info!
This whole thread is a giant hoot. I am running for school board. Vote for Cranky Old Timer! I vote to reopen Westchester and renovate 5th Avenue. Put the administration in an existing building in Decatur (we do have avaialble office space that’s off the square) Renovate 5th Avenue. Keep the current model at Glennwood. It makes me sick to think they made all those changes to make it an academy, put everyone through the wringer, and then want to change it up again. TOO MUCH. STOP IT ALREADY. Think ahead, not just next week. Keep Renfroe a middle school. K-8 model is nice, but again, a lot of change in too short a space of time. We had charter schools ramrodded through, let’s sit back and see how these things are working first. VOTE CRANKY!
Sneaky?
OMG, How could the countless, endless, public meetings, hearings ad infinitum before the config was settled be construed as sneaky? There was even a lawsuit for goodness sake.
I agree strongly with CDS Supporter. Those school board members work tirelessly for lord knows how many hours just to prepare, read, sift, evaluate and so on. It is effectively a full time job. I know many of them and most have kids in the schools themselves. I am embarrassed to hear them and Dr. Edwards characterized as sneaky or ill-advised. Their decisions might not match your self interest, but rest assured that their decisions are based on much forethought, study, and…in some cases…painful choices.
Hope to see all you posters who feel so enraged to put your money where your gripes are and run for election if you feel our current group is so inadequate.
Cranky, thanks for brightening up this thread!
VOTE CRANKY!
(this message was not approved by the Crankster)
Cranky, I totally agree with you. I just don’t get how these things can be ramrodded through without the support of the community. I am sickened to think that they’re going to keep their fat butts sitting in Westchester when it’s a perfectly good building created for the purpose of housing a school. Ridiculous.
I am enraged that our Board wants to reinvent the wheel at every turn. I agree that they never, ever give anything any time to see how it works.
And… as a result… we have absolutely no idea what works and what doesn’t work. When someone finally untangles the massive web that the administration has woven, we still won’t know what we did right and what we did wrong. We will have to start again on square one. I’m just glad my kids are almost out.
And by the way just because you are a volunteer and just because you work hard does not mean you are doing a good job or that you are listening to your constituents.
I agree with Jim Warren… if you don’t like it… please, for the sake of everyone in your boat… RUN FOR SCHOOL BOARD! Three seats are up in the fall. I would run .. but my kids are almost out and I am just too tired. It’s time for me to move on from CSD.
Vote Cranky!
Vote Cranky! Your voice is heard if your not part of the little click the controls our tax money and children.
oh sorry squirmy toddler in lap while typing…. your voice isn’t heard is what I wanted to say.
While our schools are not perfect, just talk with anyone who lives elsewhere and uses our country’s public school system, and see how way more imperfect most school systems are than ours. We are lucky to live in a community that has one of the highest ranked public high schools (top 5%) in the whole nation. That didn’t get done without top leadership. I have said it before, we are a victim of our own success, and if you don’t like what is going on, then run for office and change it instead of sitting around and griping. I for one, think they all do an amazing job, and am proud to have them running our schools. Again, if you have a doctorate in education administration, then just maybe you could do better. Otherwise, volunteer and give assistance instead of standing around and complaining. And just remember, this community and it’s school system isn’t just about your personal needs, it needs to address the entire population, which I feel it does pretty darn well.
One of the side effects of democracy is that people equate “being heard” with “getting what you want.” That’s not always the case.
As an example, I gave the school board my opinion on how to address their challenges during the redistricting and, lo and behold, the results were fairly similar to what I advocated for. So, to my perspective, they listen really, really well. As far as I’m concerned, I was heard. And then some.
But I don’t expect it to always play out that way.
That’s why the board consists of elected positions. You’re heard through your vote. We put people we trust in place and then we, uhhhh, trust that they’ll take what they hear from constituents and learn in educational circles, research options, consider political and financial facts on the ground, and then make decisions on our behalf.
I mean, sheesh. How much more voice do you want? If you want your finger on the button, run for the position. At least Cranky’s willing to do that (and I can’t wait to see the Vote Cranky yard signs).
There’s definitely things I don’t understand about the recommendation like,
1) Making Renfroe a 900 student school – which doesn’t seem to fit into the CSD school image
2) Doing more construction – more money, more maintenance, more heating and cooling
Having said that, the recommendation came from a group of like 20 people from the community, so it isn’t just one person. So, if they all looked at the options and this is what they chose, I feel comfortable with that.
Also, as an aside, the vocal people care about the school system just like the ones who side with the school board. A non-vocal dissenter is someone getting ready to leave the system…
Speaking as a relative newbie when it comes to CSD issues, its hard to know much of the background behind CSD decisions because a lot of the conversations here go on without any sort of input from the people making those decisions.
When talking about development and whatnot, city employees are often good enough to chime in and clarify a point. But with CSD we’re allowed to speculate to our hearts desire without a follow up. Perhaps I need to reach out to them more actively. The one exception is Winnona Park’s principal, who on multiple occasions has given us a bit of insight.
Geez…don’t I sound spoiled!
I disagree with you, Scott. I think Dr. Edwards has her thumb on the Board pretty tightly. I think she gets what she wants no matter how much input we give and no matter how much work the Board does.
Here is an email I got from a member of one of the SLTs tonight:
Thank you for helping the effort to make sure the BoE hears a balanced set of reconfiguration options:
Option #12: Use trailers in 2009-2010
Option #9: New 4/5 Construction at Renfroe
Option #6: Use existing facilities
Whether your motivations are based on fairness, financial responsibility, neighborhood primary school models, or others equally important, we are working toward a BoE proposal which will show that the problem of increasing enrollments can be viably addressed using existing facilities.
Gabriel Ramirez has proposed that we use the same Reconfiguration Factors Assessment document that was used in the Reconfiguration Committee to compare and contrast our “use what we’ve got” vs. the “build something” option. Doing this would help us to break topic items out into small enough chucks that we can divide it out to fit into the 2 minute public comment sound bites at the January 13th BoE meeting.
For those of us who have time, please take a look at the Reconfiguration Factors Assessment doc (http://www.decatur-city.k12.ga.us/fyi/fyi78.shtml). Consider working through it yourself.
I expect some factors are more decisive to us than others:
Costs
Impacts on instructional programming
Success of 4/5 academy in mitigating problems of racial and socioeconomic diversity
It will be important that we avoid reopening old wounds over the previous reconfiguration. Some parents who are interested in helping with this, have regrettably removed themselves from participating because of their fears that they were lightning rods last time around, and that their participation might bias things against our efforts. I’m probably talking as much if not more to myself, when recommending that we keep it positive, politic, and diplomatic.
Please jump in and share your own analysis.
Find a teacher or school staffer and ask them to tell you what they think “off the record”.
I will be working to put together our collective thoughts. If no one else beats me to it, I will try to have something out later today to kickstart putting together topic items for the public comment session based off the Reconfiguration Factors. If you feel strongly about any particular item, I would hope that you would be willing to speak about it during the public comment time, and perhaps also consider taking an issue which might be less well represented, so that we can adequately cover all the bases.
If you don’t have time, you can still help out by listening and pointing out where our ideas fall short. But most of all, you can help by bringing in other smart motivated parents. Please send them this email and ask them to reply to you with an “I’m In” or “I’m listening”. Then let me know, and I’ll try to send them something which represents the current state of our collective thoughts and who is willing to commit to speak on what. I’ll also try to send out periodic emails to everyone involved so that you can “reply to all” and reach everyone. If you would prefer to be “blind copied” on emails, let me know.
Please help us bring in as many parent and community members as possible. We need parents from all schools. Time is very short.