Rockville Centre school board must stick to its own policies

This situation is unfortunate, but it stems from an error of judgment, not a conspiratorial plan.”

The Board of Education has found itself in a rather precarious situation following last week’s meeting.

On one side, there is a throng of angry parents from Riverside school, who rightly believe that the district acted inappropriately by offering families at AvalonBay the option to move to Watson. On the other side, there is the district’s policy of not making decisions on adding or subtracting classes until the district walk-through in August.

The Riverside parents want the board to say right now that it will split the incoming kindergarten class, which currently stands at 27 students, into two classes.

They’re right. It has been shown time and again that students benefit from being in smaller classes. And Riverside has the room to accommodate a second class. And the district was out of line, and acted against its own policies, by contacting the families at AvalonBay so early and essentially offering them Class Balancing before anyone else.

But the board cannot capitulate now to the demand that it split the class at Riverside. When discussions and arguments about class size have arisen in previous years, trustees have always stuck to their policy of waiting until August to decide on class sizes. To deviate from that now would create a precedent that would certainly be used against the board in the future.

The board should formally apologize to the Riverside families, and inform the Avalon families that their children will not attend Watson until they officially apply under the Class Balancing policy and are approved by the district superintendent.

The families at Riverside must understand that this was not an act of malice on the part of the district, and there is no conspiracy to create one track of classes to eventually close the school. This situation is unfortunate, but it stems from an error of judgment, not a conspiratorial plan. The Board of Education is not actively trying to undermine one of the district’s schools.

And when the time comes to decide on whether to split the class at Riverside, the board needs to treat it like it would any other class. If there are too many students, it will need to be divided into two classes. But if there are fewer than 25 kindergartners — which there would be if the families from AvalonBay, or anywhere else, opt for Class Balancing this month — the class should not be split. And we hope the parents of Riverside students will be able to accept that decision.