Two teachers, three grades

In the middle of reading "The Red Stone Game" with her first-grade students, Geri Beussink pauses to pass out vocabulary worksheets to her second-grade students.

She looks at her desk, already overflowing just an hour into the school day, and wonders if she'll have time to get through all of her lessons today.

Time is just one of several challenges that came along with Jackson School District administrators' money-saving decision to combine grades at Gordonville Elementary this year.

The change meant eliminating one of the first-through-third-grade school's three teachers, leaving Beussink with 12 first-graders and six second-graders. The other remaining teacher, Robin Harbison, has seven second-graders and 11 third-graders.

More than halfway through the school year now, the two teachers have found a way to make their multi-grade classes work but not without daily struggles.

With combined grades, the teachers deal with two of almost everything, from spelling word lists and reading books to file cabinets and math lessons.

Beussink has two versions of the alphabet taped to her classroom walls -- one surrounded with words such as "jet" and "hot" for the first grade and one with words such as "city" and "myself" for the second grade.

Her classroom is overflowing with learning materials for both grades to the extent that there was no place left to tape a number line except on the ceiling.

"There's no time between activities to put stuff away, so it piles up," Beussink said. "I have to stay longer after school now to do those things."

It's not the actual size of her class that makes teaching combined grades difficult, Beussink said, it's the double curriculum and time element.

Both Gordonville classes have 18 students, while the district as a whole averages 20 students per teacher.

"We are trying to make sure that each class gets the basics that it needs to move on to the next level," Beussink said. "I had trouble working everything in when I just had one grade. A lot of the extra things just don't happen."

Art projects and other supplemental lesson activities are often too time-consuming to fit into the schedule.

Despite the diminished one-on-one time with the teachers, Gordonville parents say their children have adapted to the new configuration.

"My son has adjusted well," said Lisa McClanahan, whose third-grader, Troylee, is in Harbison's class. "At the beginning of the year, his teacher told him they'd try things one way, and if it didn't work, they'd try another way. I think it worked out."

Harbison, in her second year of teaching at Gordonville, said it took longer for students to fall into a routine this year because of re-configuration.

In her class, the two grades are divided up for math and reading lessons but work as a group in science and social studies.

While she works with one grade, the other students do worksheets or rotate through learning centers. Interruptions aren't allowed, but there's a time during the day that Harbison has set aside specifically to answer questions.

"It's hard to say, 'I can't help you right now' when I'm working with one group," Harbison said. "That's difficult for them to understand."

cclark@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128