Class-splitting creates fracture

The application is supposed to be a fair process with equity, where everybody gets a letter in June and has the same timing and decision-making policy to avail themselves of this. That is not what happened here whatsoever.”

Andrew Tobman, Riverside parent

Parents from Riverside Elementary School packed a Board of Education meeting last week to speak out against what they felt was unfair treatment of their school by the board and the district administration.

More than 50 parents filled the meeting space to capacity on May 25 to demand that the board correct what they called an unfair use of the district’s Class Balancing policy. They said that families at AvalonBay with incoming kindergartners were “poached” away from Riverside and directed to Watson school, thereby reducing the number of incoming students at Riverside and forcing it to merge two kindergarten classes into one large one.

Under the Class Balancing policy, the district sends letters in June to parents whose children will be in classes of 25 or more the following fall. If possible, it gives them the option of moving the children to a different building, where they will be in a class of 19 or fewer. But the parents contend that the district inappropriately used the policy by contacting the parents at AvalonBay in late April and telling them about switching schools. No students have been moved yet, but two families have accepted the offer and are preparing to move their three children to Watson.

Riverside now has an incoming class of 27 kindergartners, and one more may be added. If three students leave, the incoming class would drop to 24 or 25 — a number small enough that the Board of Education would most likely not create a second section.

“There is a sense that trust has been breached here,” said resident Michael Mulhall. “And I hope we can fix that at the next few meetings.”

The parents said they felt that the district was unfairly targeting Riverside and trying to keep all the kindergartners in one class, despite the fact that the school has room for a second class and their contention that the children would benefit from smaller class sizes.

Dr. Noreen Leahy, the district’s assistant superintendent of special education and pupil services, who contacted the parents at AvalonBay, explained what happened. She said that the board asked her to find out how many students would be attending each school this fall, and she learned that there were families at Avalon wwho would be sending kindergartners to Riverside.

“It was this unique situation that we found ourselves in with a group of families located very close to another elementary school,” Leahy said. Though AvalonBay sends students to Riverside, it’s closer to Watson. “We just wanted to get an idea of their interest.”

Leahy said she contacted five families with incoming students. Three said they weren’t interested in Watson, one had already asked months before to send their children to Watson and the third took a few days to consider the schools and then decided to go with Watson instead of Riverside.

But parents took umbrage with the fact that the district contacted the families at Watson long before anyone else was notified about possible class balancing. “The application is supposed to be a fair process with equity, where everybody gets a letter in June and has the same timing and decision-making policy to avail themselves of this,” said Andrew Tobman, a Riverside parent. “That is not what happened here whatsoever.”

Parents asked the Board of Education to rescind the offer made to the families at AvalonBay and instead split the Riverside kindergarten class in two, creating a class of 14 and one of 13.

But the board said it could not split the class at this point. Class sizes have not been finalized yet, and will not be until August, as is standard procedure. Because of that, all of the students are still registered at Riverside, even if they were told they could attend Watson.

“Even though there might not have been a certain degree of malice when you started the process, it clearly was an error in judgment,” Tobman told the board last week. “Because you have a policy, you’re applying it with bias and unfairly to the families you’re not speaking to.”

Dr. William Johnson, the district superintendent, apologized to the parents, and said he understood their position. “All I can tell you is that, from my heart, I never wanted to create this,” he said, “and I’m very sorry to those in this community who are very upset by, as you characterized it, as an error in judgment.”

Nonetheless, a contentious, two-hour-long discussion among board trustees and parents had no concrete resolution. The board agreed to discuss the matter again at its next meeting on June 1.

“We feel very badly that we lost your trust,” board President Liz Dion said at the end of the meeting. “That wasn’t the intention.”

“Then fix it!” many people shouted at her.