District delays fifth-grade move into Davison

The parents of fourth-graders at Malverne’s Davison Avenue Intermediate School have mixed emotions about the Board of Education’s decision to wait one more year before moving the fifth grade out of the middle school building and into Davison — but they all agree that the board’s failure to communicate that decision until mid-May is inexcusable.

“This is a disgrace,” said one parent at the board’s May 10 meeting. “You didn’t even have a contingency plan.”

Both the board and Malverne school district administrators promised residents last November that this year’s fourth-graders would remain in the Davison Avenue school building come fall — they would be the first fifth grade class to remain in the elementary school building. The catch was that residents would have to vote in favor of a nearly $10 million bond that would be used, in part, to expand Davison.    District taxpayers did vote for the bond, passing it with 726 votes on Nov. 16, 2010. School officials had expected to begin construction this summer and complete the project by the fall.

“Each project under the bond would be underway for the entire summer, morning, noon and night,” schools Superintendent Dr. James Hunderfund told the Herald last November. “We’re hoping to get finished with it by the start of school in September.”

But the state Education Department held up the district’s paperwork longer than anticipated and administrators had to put their plan on hold. Spiro Colaitis, superintendent for district operations, said he expects to have state approval within the next few weeks. The bidding process would begin shortly thereafter and construction would begin in August, he said.

Board trustee Gina Genti said it shouldn’t matter whether the state delayed construction plans because parents had been promised the move with or without the bond. School officials had told board trustees and parents that even without expansion or bond approval, there was enough space at Davison to house the fifth grade. Turns out that is not the case: students would be “squished like sardines” and art and music space would be lost if fifth-graders remain at Davison next year, according to Laura Avvinti, president of the Davison Avenue PTA.

Genti told district administrators at the May 10 meeting that they should conduct more research before presenting the board with plans and promises. She then told parents in the audience that the board has no choice but to postpone the move for one year because “it wouldn’t be a good fit” right now.

As a result of the board’s late decision, parents of fourth-graders are forced to scramble to put together a moving-up ceremony and yearbook — things they had not anticipated doing until next spring, when the students moved from fifth grade to sixth at the middle school.

“It wasn’t professional,” Avvinti said of the way the board handled the matter. “I think a decision should have been made. They’ve known for a long time … that the state is holding things up, so something should have been done.”

Avvinti and other parents were even more upset to find out that the board hadn’t planned to discuss, much less decide, the situation at its May 10 meeting — five weeks before the end of the school year.

“It just bothers me that they technically could have left it another month,” she said. “And that’s not fair for these kids: they need to know where they’re going, they need to be able to prepare themselves.”

Avvinti went on to say that some children are excited to move to the middle school building, where the fifth grade is kept separate from the other grades. But some parents who are experiencing the move for the first time are nervous about it, and those who’ve had children go through the middle school say the kids will be fine, according to Avvinti.

“There’s very mixed emotions,” she said.

The district had decided to move the fifth grade into Davison last year, when it reorganized its elementary school structure as per recommendations made by the Educational Facilities Task Force, which said fifth-graders are not developmentally or emotionally ready to be housed in a building with older children.

Parents, board members and district officials are counting on the state to ensure that the fifth grade will be housed at Davison starting September 2012, but anything can happen between now and then.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Avvinti said, “but I’m hoping they’ve learned their lesson and they’ll keep us up to date. And if it’s really not viable, then they’ll let us know earlier so that, again, we can prepare for what we need to do.”