After reading the article “Board Talks Berner, New Academics,” I was left feeling confused and frustrated.
Like the district’s parent meetings and presentations to the school board, where no questions from the public are permitted, the above-stated article was pro-move in focus.
The article never mentions that almost 3,000 Massapequa residents have signed a petition hoping to convince members of the Massapequa Board of Education to vote against moving the 6th grade to the Alfred E. Berner Middle School. Many residents are against the move for a variety of reasons. Among the top reasons I have heard against moving the 6th grade to the middle school are: 1) the potential of an elementary school to close due to increased unused capacity; 2) no real benefit to students in terms of academics; and 3) more pressing academic priorities (such as moving the 9th grade to the main campus) in the district that need to be addressed.
While I acknowledge that Massapequa Superintendent Lucille F. Iconis has stated that closing a school is not part the reconfiguration plan it is hard to ignore the trend in school closings on Long Island. Most recently, Sachem School district voted to close two elementary schools and a middle school citing decreasing enrollment. Currently all our elementary schools are operating below full capacity. Moving the 6th grade to the middle school will create and even larger void that, in the future, may precipitate permanent school closings; when schools close property values drop. Research has shown that many factors directly related to school closings contribute to a decline in property values. Two Massapequa elementary schools have already closed in our district, why increase the potential of having to close another?
With regard to academics, the district’s most recent presentation, Instructional Program and Expanded Opportunities, proposes the opportunity for Languages Other Than English (LOTE) as a benefit of the 6th grade reconfiguration. Strong evidence shows that time spent on foreign language study strongly reinforces the core subject areas of reading, English language literacy, social studies and math. I have yet to see a plan that will fully immerse our 6th graders in LOTE and provide LOTE to all our elementary students. At best, what has been proposed is LOTE every other day to 6th graders after they have been moved to the middle school. In comparison, the Jericho, Sag Harbour and Syosset (high performing school districts with a k-5 configuration) school districts offer LOTE starting in kindergarten—a critical developmental age for children . Why not, put our effort into designing a curriculum that will put LOTE in our elementary schools providing the academic benefit to all elementary students not just 6th graders, as early as possible?
I want to know why the district is so set on moving the sixth grade when the State has indicated major changes to the curriculum are on the horizon. We have no idea of the types of resources that will be required due to the impending change in curriculum. As has been published in several major New York newspapers, the Common Core curriculum was found to be, in many instances, developmentally inappropriate and too difficult. The June 2015 Algebra Regents was deemed too difficult, as few students attained college mastery scores, and the entire curriculum, from grade K-12, is under review. Therefore, moving the 6th grade to the middle school in order to accommodate an evolving curriculum is premature. Additionally, Massapequa has not provided any textbooks or referential materials for students in math classes. How are they supposed to succeed without basic reference books? New York State’s Department of Education (NYSED) itself has stated the math and ELA modules–used as stand alones by Massapequa–were not meant to be a complete set of curricula tools, but instead were intended as supplementary material. Why are we embracing what appears to be an incomplete program? Why are we not supplementing these materials, as many successful districts do? How are we, in these cynical times, supposed to feel that the move is little more than an effort to boost middle school performance on state tests, when no additional and more substantive curricular materials are provided, only more class time dedicated to ELA and math with the modules as the teaching and reference tools? Furthermore, why aren’t we addressing the gaping holes in our curriculum? For instance a student who is in accelerated math in 9th grade cannot go down a step, for there is not a step for them to go down to–the configurations and current curriculum don’t allow for it. Wouldn’t fixing this quandary be a priority so that students who are college bound in three years have more of a chance to succeed where they may otherwise struggle?
Finally, there are many other priorities facing our school district that seem to take precedence over the 6th grade reconfiguration. For example, effort should be put into moving the 9th grade to the main campus so that our ninth graders can have a true high school experience. On the Ames campus they the ninth grade is completely cut off from interacting with the high school. Students I have spoken to say they do not feel like high school students. They indicate that although they are bussed to the main campus to participate in sports and other activities, they often arrive late and are not able to fully participate as they would like. Additionally, they are deprived of important academic and peer-to-peer learning opportunities. Students learn a great deal by explaining their ideas to others and by participating in activities in which they can learn from their older and younger peers. They develop skills in organizing and planning learning activities, working collaboratively with others, giving and receiving feedback and evaluating their own learning.
Another troubling problem with having students at Ames is the additional school transition the students have to experience. Some studies suggest that an increase in the number of school-to-school transitions increases student dropout rates. A few studies also show that the number of school-to-school transitions exerts a negative influence on student achievement.
Overall, I am disappointed in the administration’s attempt to push this reconfiguration on residents in just a few short months (presentations began in November 2015 and the BOE will vote on February 9, 2016), especially since many residents are unaware that this move is even being considered and the reconfiguration could potentially affect their home values and taxes. In addition, unlike other districts (like Sachem) considering a reconfiguration, Massapequa has only presented reasons to move the sixth grade. The district has not provided residents with any alternatives to the move, has not attempted to fix holes in our current curriculum and has failed to provide residents with a 5 or 10 year plan for the newly freed space at the elementary schools. This article is extremely misleading and fails to adequately convey the community’s level of frustration of moving forward with a reconfiguration plan that just two years ago was rejected.
—Allison Pulizzi
