Future School District Model Remains Undecided

Tensions were high Wednesday and talk was plentiful, but a decision to take action is still yet to be made regarding the future set-up of the Huron Valley School District. 

Dozens of people spoke for and against the school distict's proposed plan to switch to a to help boost enrollment in middle school buildings with declines.

In this model, fifth-graders in the district would be moved out of the elementary schools and into the district's four middle schools. This would keep all four middle schools open, but close at least one elementary school.

Parents in attendance were upset after a building utilization graph was shown and excluded Brooks Elementary because they felt like the decision has already been made to close the elementary school. Brooks is the smallest elementary school in the district and has been selected as the school to be closed if the board decides to move ahead with the fifth through eighth grade model.

Many parents also expressed concern about their children being exposed to drugs, sex and alcohol by older students because they may have unsupervised contact with teenagers. Middle school kids currently ride the bus with high school kids. Some young students also addressed Wednesday's panel with similar concerns.

Stefan Sysko, a Highland parent, urged the crowd to shift their focus from emotions to evidence. 

"There’s been a lot of passionate outrage, but what I haven’t heard is a lot of facts," he said.

Sysko said the research he's done points to no negative social or academic problems with the proposed model.

"We’ve heard a lot of people stand up against this model—so therefore it must be bad? I was a small child when a lot of people were speaking up because black kids should not go to school with white kids, that didn’t make them right. The facts need to be the facts,” he said.

The meeting did begin with a question and answer session where the school officials attempted to clarify how the proposed model would work.

For instance, Deputy Superintendent Nancy Coratti said the same programming and curriculum that is presently used for fifth graders would remain in place. Fifth graders would not be switched to team assignments, but teaming will remain for sixth, seventh and eighth graders. The team teaching approach is used throughout the middle schools in the district, but not at the elementary school level because the system doesn't lend itself to the curriculum.

"As is currently done in the middle schools, each grade level will be provided with their own area to build a sense of community," Coratti said. "The high schools will be moved to a separate tier, and no fifth grader will ever have to ride a bus with a high school student. Recess will also still be provided for fifth graders as they have now in the elementary schools.”

Donna Welch, assistant superintendent of administrative services, showed a map detailing potential redistricting. But some audience members claimed she was flipping through the slides too quickly for them to absorb, so the district promised to include the materials on its website.

“I was a little disappointed in the presentation,” said Cindy Salis of Commerce Township, who has three children in the district, “I feel like it was very vague and was designed to sell this concept to us without providing a lot of concrete data. I have a lot of questions that were not answered.”

Those in attendance said they were also frustrated that they couldn't directly address the school board. Instead, the panel at the the public forum included school principals, the district's director of instruction, the deputy superintendent and others.

“None of these people feel listened to,” said parent, Ron Madison, directing his words towards the board members in the audience, “You need to listen to the people who put you in office.”

Madison and his wife Sally spent the beginning of the meeting handing out fliers for their website, Parents After the Truth Now, which they created after experiencing a similar situation in their previous school district. The site aims to provide factual information of district happenings, and to hold the appropriate people accountable for system flaws.

The site points out, as the Madisons' perceive, inconsistencies in what the board and district have said throughout the process of trying to close a middle school.

From the start, the district has said one of the main goals of closing a middle school was to balance enrollment for optimized team teaching. The 21st century curriculum the district will implement is based on team teaching models. In team teaching, two or four teachers collaborate to teach the same groups of students different subjects. School officials have said this gives students consistency, and the district claims it allows teachers to form better relationships with students and teach more effectively.

Jeff Long, of White Lake Township, has a son in sixth grade at Oak Valley and a daughter in fifth grade at Country Oaks. He said he has been impressed with the team teaching at Oak Valley and says his son really excels. 

“Tonight you’ve shown me no evidence that changing to a 5/8 model to fill middle school buildings offers any educational advantage over staying in the 6/8 model. By staying in the 6/8 model and closing a middle school you bring the sixth to eighth grade students counts up to the numbers needed to maximize the team teaching model, which, by the district’s own admission during the 21st Century committee meetings was the preferred and most beneficial model to help our students excel.”

Oak Valley Middle School physical education teacher, Terry Haren, expressed his understanding for passions on all sides of this issue and offered some reassurance, “As a teacher in the district for 20 years, we will make it work. Is it what I want? Not really, but I’m not here to say one way or another because as an educator I will make it work for you kid if they attend Oak Valley. We will make it work.”

A date for a final decision regarding which educational model will be selected for the district has still not been made.