In An Effort to Save Face, School District Undermines Trust

There is a huge problem in the Geneva City School District report on realignment. The very study they call upon to support their decision to radically alter the structure of elementary education in the district actually presents the best argument yet against realignment.

To the District’s credit, they have shared a great deal more information about this
proposal in the past few weeks than they have in the entire year (or more) the plan has
been in the works. Unfortunately, the more they share, the more questionable the
plan looks, at least from the point of view of their justification for it. What was initially re-visited as a cost-saving measure in the face of budget shortfalls has become only a face-saving plan eroding trust.

As the plan inches closer and closer to final approval, more and more doubtful District ‘insiders’ are coming forward with their reservations. Externally, within the larger community, much the same is happening. Frankly, there is not nearly as much support for the plan as the District would have the School Board and the public believe.

Tonight (Wednesday, March 25th), at 7pm in the North Street School Auditorium, the Geneva City School District Administration will hold the final public forum on the elementary realignment proposal before turning the matter over to the School Board for deliberation. All interested parties should attend and pay attention to what they hear, and ask questions.

As we reflect on what has become yet another quagmire of failed process and policy in the City, we see here what we saw with City decision-making in years past. People with the best perspective and the most to offer (staff, management, and community members in the ‘inner circle’ of decision-making) feel that they’d have a lot to lose if they speak up, or out. They, therefore, tend not to make bold public statements or ask too many questions.

NoStringsGeneva has a no leaks, no gossip policy. This means we do not accept disclosures of confidential material from ‘anonymous’ sources, nor do we repeat unsubstantiated rumors. What we have received recently from ‘insiders’ to this decision-making process has been overwhelming. Serious questions have arisen about the basis for this change.

Here are the three issues that are of major concern, and in need of answers from the District:

1. In the final Superintendent’s recommendation for reconfiguration (available online here), several studies are cited as evidence to support the move away from K-5 schools to the preK-2, 3-5 arrangement. An entire section is devoted to the idea of creating “a community of learners” (p. 15), citing a study entitled “Turning the Tide: The Achievements of the First Things First Education Reform in Kansas City, Kansas public Schools.”

Get this. The First Things First program itself stresses smaller multi-year schools as the key component of student success. To quote the program directly (and you can access a comprehensive description and assessment of it in this report), the first of the “Seven Critical Features of First Things First” is:

“Provide continuity of care by forming small learning communities that keep the same group of professionals, students and families together for extended periods during the day and across multiple school years (p. 35)." It warns against transitions between shorter-term groupings, saying “schools with two-year communities were still struggling to implement the critical features. Older students needing to recover credits were forced to switch small learning communities to do so; and collective responsibility for important outcomes, such as graduation…and high stakes testing was difficult to ensure with students moving into the upper-level communities with entirely new sets of teachers after two years (p. 10).”

This Kansas City, Kansas school district that is the focus of the study the District is hanging its ‘community of learners’ argument on, operates on a K-5, 6-8, 9-12 model, as you can see from their school directory, here.

So the very study being used to support this idea of a preK-2, 3-5 system to enhance our ‘community of learners’ is based on a district that uses Geneva’s existing configuration. One community, yet achieving its success through more than one K-5 school because a community of learners requires a continuity of care!

2. The second issue relates to transportation, but in a way different from what we have discussed in a previous post. According to the Superintendent’s Report (the same one referenced above and available here), the new bussing arrangement is made possible through staggered start times at the two reconfigured elementary schools. Common sense says that the less time on the bus the better, especially when older kids and younger kids are all riding together. As we’ve said before, bus drivers aren’t meant to be babysitters.

But under the realignment plan, the preK-2 kids who would attend West Street would be dismissed at 2:20pm. Rather than heading directly home, they would all travel to North Street where they would wait on the bus for the older children to board at 2:40pm. Given the amount of time it takes to get kids on the appropriate busses, this means that drivers could start their route around 3pm. Is keeping young children on the bus for at least forty minutes every afternoon sound educational policy? And for children who live farther away from the school, can they reasonably be expected to patiently wait to be dropped off for over an hour? That’s quite a long time to expect kids from ages 4-10 to sit still and interact positively.

3. The middle school effect. According to the Superintendent’s report,

“Our data indicates that the current merging of West Street and North Street students in 6th grade at a time when adolescents are least tolerant creates a large number of altercations between these two groups. By moving the whole grade level as a single unit, we hope to minimize any negative impact the transition has (p. 14).”

This statement assumes two things: 1. That student ‘altercations’ are due primarily to student identification of the elementary school of origin; and 2. that eliminating that distinction will eliminate the ‘large number of altercations’ attributed to that factor.

Is it really the District’s contention that middle school ‘altercations’ are not the product of preteen angst, out-of-school interactions, cyber-bullying, social judgments about clothing, hair, or music, or any of the other well studied factors of tension amongst that age group? While we would certainly love to see a solution to bullying and fighting in general, the District seems to want us to believe that ‘altercations’ are a middle school phenomenon directly related to inter-school rivalry.

If that is true, then what accounts for elementary school altercations, or altercations amongst middle school students who attended the same elementary school? Unfortunately, we believe that this age group is more prone to fighting in general, and the solution lies in comprehensive prevention and supervision strategies that have little or no bearing on elementary school realignment.

We conducted our own similarly-unscientific study of the ‘altercations’ amongst 6th graders this year. While it is true that some fights occurred between students from different elementary schools, a further discussion with the students indicates that the fights were about 'relationships', hair, clothes, or the way someone looked at someone else, often between 'friends', not a localized version of a West-Side-Story-esque “Jets vs. Sharks.” Turns out, a lot of West Street and North Street students come into middle school already knowing each other from other activities. Yet, even some of those students get into ‘altercations.’ How does realignment significantly change that dynamic?

Overall, we’re glad the District is trying to provide more information in defense of its consideration of this move. But the truth of the matter is that the brighter the light we shine on this information, the more it reveals a real lack of compelling evidence. And it’s our position at NoStringsGeneva, that a fact-based point of view trumps an opinion-based ‘fact’ every time!