The first days of school are made even more anxious than normal because of a policy that waits until the last minute to inform kindergarten students and their parents of what school they will be attending.
Students “think they’re going to Lincoln, and then we sneak up on them and suddenly they’re going to McKinley,” Larry Hart, principal of Lincoln Elementary School, told USD 257 board of trustees members at their meeting Monday night.
The procedure to inform kindergarteners of their school one week before classes begin is especially a problem for Hart, whose population-dense area typically has to send students to either McKinley or Jefferson schools. Lincoln has a maximum of 49 kindergarteners.
Board members are considering proposed changes to the elementary school handbook where each school will take students from a designated area of city blocks. Hart contends that with a much larger residential area around his school, he will still have to turn some away.
The most pressing issue for Hart and the other elementary school principals is not being able to give parents enough notice that their child won’t be attending the school nearest to them.
Hart proposed allowing students to enroll in the spring Kindergarten Roundup instead of the traditional enrollment period one week before school starts.
“We provide games and fun activities and open up our schools to these families,” Hart said of the spring event that familiarizes first-time students with school. “The sad part is more than half of the parents don’t bring their children to the event.”
Hart said parents who bring their children to the annual spring event should be rewarded by their children being placed in their desired schools.
Mark Burris, board member, had some reservations.
“There’s going to be parents that can’t get there in the evening,” Burris said. “They’re going to be saying, ‘now you’re docking me because I have to work for a living?’”
Board members sympathized with administrators, agreeing one week is not enough time to contact parents.
“What you’re saying is you’d like to have all summer long to walk parents back from the cliff instead of one week,” Burris said.
While the initial proposal to amend the handbook seemed to carry weight with the board, Hart’s fellow administrators, Lori Maxwell, McKinley Elementary principal, and Brad Crusinbery, Jefferson Elementary principal, were split on the change.
“I’m not sure that we’ve really talked this all the way through,” Maxwell said. “I think there are still questions that need to be addressed.”
In the end, the board agreed more work needed to be done before a decision could be made.
