PARENTS VOICE CONCERNS OVER KINDERGARTEN

More than 40 teachers and concerned parents attended a school board meeting Monday night to discuss the district's options on where to educate most of the kindergarteners registered at Clippard Elementary. At least for the moment, the issue has been settled.

"I received correspondence from a lot of parents on the issue, and most of them said if we had 50 spots we should go ahead and fill them," said Dr. Dan Tallent, superintendent. "I didn't think that was unreasonable, so I called (Clippard principal Stan Seiler) last week and asked him to draw the names and send out letters to parents."

Both Clippard and Franklin schools have registered more kindergarteners than their schools can handle, while May Greene, Washington and Jefferson schools had low pre-enrollment numbers for fall. Parents attending the meeting suggested the board consider solutions other than reassigning students, including reassigning teachers from one of the schools with low pre-enrollment.

School policy provides that when a kindergarten teacher has more than 25 students registered, a lottery is held to determine which students remain at the school and which are reassigned to another school.

"The bottom line here is the importance of the kids," said Mark Fluegge, whose kindergartener will be attending Clippard in the fall. "I understand that there is one of the sixth-grade rooms available. To me, it makes more sense to send one teacher to Clippard to teach than to send 25 students to different schools."

Tallent said administrators were following set policy and would not be able to consider other alternatives until after enrollment resumes Aug. 1. "It would be premature to try and give hypothetical solutions until after we have a truer picture of what enrollment is, which won't be until August," he said.

Dr. Barb Kohlfield, principal at May Greene, said in a telephone interview that her school historically posts low pre-enrollment numbers. However, she said, the school's two teachers are needed because actual enrollment is always higher by the first day of school.

"That figure is misleading because a lot of times we don't get our majority of kids enrolled until the first week of August," said Kohlfield. "We usually have 25 or 30 kids."

Many of the parents addressing the board said they received letters confirming that their children would be attending Clippard school. However, they said, they were still concerned about the physical and emotional wellbeing of children who would be bused to a school outside of their neighborhood.

"There's overcrowding all over the country, but never have I been in a school where they bused the children," said Trina Graham, a former teacher whose son will be attending Clippard in the fall. "I'm worried about children being on a bus, unbuckled, unsupervised, except for the bus driver, who's trying to drive a bus. I think that other things should be considered."

Parents told board members that they respected the board's attempt at fiscal responsibility, but in this case the wellbeing of the children was more important. "I understand it costs $40,000 to install another classroom," said William Cunningham. "Is it worth 40,000 bucks not to get the right thing done?"

Doug Mueller, whose son will be attending Clippard, said his main concern was that children reassigned to other schools could miss class time because of longer bus rides. "I have some real issues with that," he said. "I would much rather have my child in a temporary classroom than missing class time because of a bus ride."

Board members encouraged Tallent and other administrators to monitor the issue closely and bring back recommendations to the board as new developments occurred. "We should watch the numbers at the other schools closely to see what happens," said board member Robert Blank. "If the numbers stay low, then I agree with the parents, and we should look at moving a teacher instead of busing the children."