The emergency that wasn’t

An emergency meeting of Meadow School parents turned into a small, impromptu celebration on the evening of Oct. 6 when the Baldwin School District reversed a decision to eliminate one fourth-grade class at the school and divide its students among other rooms.

The district cited financial problems as the reason for the proposed class collapse, but parents of fourth-grade students were unsatisfied and scheduled an emergency meeting in the Meadow parking lot.

“Our school district is removing one fourth-grade class and thereby increasing the remaining classes to 27 students,” read an announcement on the website meadowschoolparents.com. “The teacher is being moved to Shubert Elementary to teach a class of 14 students. This will not stop with fourth grade — it will only get worse if we don’t let Superintendent Mapes know we will not stand for this.”

The meeting, however, was rendered unnecessary when, at around noon last Thursday, the district decided not to collapse the class after all.

“On Thursday, October 6, 2011, a newly registered Meadow 4th grade student was added to the Meadow class list, which caused the grade 4 classes to exceed the operational limit of 27 by one student,” a statement from the district read. “Since the consolidation had not yet occurred, it was decided to cancel it even though the final determination date of October 1 had passed.” The statement was later echoed in a letter from Meadow School Principal Joan Flatley.

“We’re thrilled right now,” Kathleen Desio, a Meadow School mother and organizer of the emergency meeting, told the Herald. “I think it’s nice to know that people can actually still get things done.”

Desio said she went to the meeting site, despite the district reversal, to “talk to parents who might not have gotten the message and to relay the events of the day.” The half-dozen or so parents who showed up were pleased by the outcome, she said, but most were skeptical of the district’s

motivations.

“It is quite comical,” Desio said. “The very tool they used to justify their decision to collapse a fourth-grade section, they seemed to forget all about in an attempt to cover up the real reason why they reversed the decision.”