Parents at a town hall meeting Monday said they value the caliber of faculty and staff in the Springfield Township School District, but they have questions and some reservations about the proposed plan that would restructure schools for the 2010-2011 school year.
The meeting, which that took place at Springfield Township High School, gave parents of elementary school students a chance to ask questions or raise concerns about the proposal. For administrators, it was an opportunity to consider parents’ ideas.
The plan was created to provide equal resources for all students and handle projected high enrollment numbers, according to school administrators. If the plan is implemented, all kindergarten and first-grade students in the school district will attend Enfield Elementary School next year, and second- to fifth-graders will attend the new Erdenheim Elementary on Haws Lane. Fifth-graders would move to Erdenheim from Springfield Township Middle School, and eighth-graders would move to the middle school from the high school.
Parents and administrators discussed how restructuring would affect the students’ academic, social and personal development. Some of the public comments referred to keeping class sizes small, maintaining close relationships with the schools and how physically changing buildings would affect the students.
Some parents said they worried young children would be overwhelmed by moving from Enfield to Erdenheim after only two years in school. They suggested that a school for kindergarten through third grade might be more suitable.
“I think K through second at least would be more developmentally appropriate with the needs maturity-wise, social and academic,” said Lisa Antinucci, a parent of a third-grader at Erdenheim. Antinucci works with school districts throughout Montgomery County on transition activities with kindergarten children.
According to state guidelines, kindergarten through third grade is referred to as early childhood and elementary education, she said after the meeting. “Kindergarten through first, it just seems like we’re narrowing down too much,” she said.
Kindergarten, first and second grades would not fit into Enfield unless the district sacrificed small class sizes, and fourth and fifth grades would not be an ideal fit for Enfield because there would be too much leftover space, Superintendent Wendy Royer said,
Developing the restructuring proposal has been a difficult process because the administration has to consider the option that is both best for the students and the most economical, Royer said, likening the process to piecing together a puzzle.
“We are not going to sacrifice instructional programs to do this,” she told parents.
For the fifth-graders, a benefit to moving to the elementary school is that test scores would increase because there would be more time for teachers to focus on language arts and math, said Carol Rohrbach, the school district’s director of curriculum and professional development. “We have an opportunity to tighten our focus.”
The instructional capacity will only be enhanced by the teachers working together in the same building, she said.
Some parents were also concerned about losing the small-school atmosphere at the elementary schools.
According to enrollment projections, there will be about 600 to 700 students in Erdenheim next year, should the district implement the proposal, Royer said.
“I love the fact that the principal knows my kid’s name,” said Noah Eisenman, a parent of a second-grade student at Erdenheim and a daughter who will enter kindergarten next year.
Under the proposal, Eisenman’s daughter would begin school at Enfield next year, but he would prefer that his two children be at the same school to ease the transition for his youngest.
“There’s got to be a better solution,” he said after the meeting. “I think it needs to be really carefully thought out. They could have done a better job planning for the future. Space is always an issue.”
Walter Lapidus, a candidate for school board, supported the measure.
“My opinion is that it’s a good solution given the constraints,” he said. “It would be nice for all of the kids to enjoy the brand new school.”
One of the benefits of the proposal is that it would do away with redistricting and give families a sense of certainty that they know where the student will attend school each year, according to administrators.
The proposed plan would also unite all students as a Springfield “cohort,” rather than keep students split between the two elementary schools until they reach middle school, they said.
“The relationships that students will be able to form in the community are a powerful part of going with this cohort model,” said Chris Bradley, principal of Erdenheim. “They would have developed these relationships from their early years. I know that we have a phenomenal staff, so I have no doubt that we will all come together.”
The downside of the cohort is that there would be no opportunity for students to break away from stereotypes and negative relationships, one woman said in the meeting.
Martin Ryan, an Erdenheim parent and a member of the PTO’s Erdenheim Elementary Playground Fund, said the merging of two school communities provides an opportunity to increase their fundraising efforts to build a playground for all students. “If there is a community equal to our size at Enfield, they don’t know we don’t have a playground. We’re ready to work with the other half of the future Erdenheim community.”
Administrators said they will create a document of frequently asked questions to keep parents informed as the process continues and address such related issues as the effect on bus schedules. The document will be on the school district Web page, www.sdst.org.
School officials will hold another meeting in the high school auditorium on Sept. 24 at 7 p.m. to discuss realignment at the middle school.
