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Cave Creek district will provide free all-day kindergarten

justkeepmovin wrote:

All-day Kindergarten has its benefits; but so does 6th grade.
CCUSD's choice to save All-DAy kindergarten means they are moving forward with plans to close a middle school and "leave 5th graders at their elementary school" It sounds simple enough; however what they have done is effectively is leave an entire grade of students as Guinea pigs for the next year. Why? Well, in making this change they are effectively upending the 6th grade curriculum that has been in place for many years with differentiated instruction with highly qualified teachers in their respective subject areas. They have teachers who have taught nothing but 6th grade math or English or science for years. Now, with fewer than 3 months of warning, they are suddenly thrown into self-contained classrooms (unless an elementary school has four 6th grade classes, the math does not work out for them to have highly qualified teachers for each separate subject and most CCUSD schools have no more than three 6th grade classes).
Sixth grade is a major transitional year. It is the time that students have huge maturity growth and their academics begin to really "count" with grades, etc. beginning to directly effect their high school development and college planning. Now the sixth graders will not have honors opportunities (except POSSIBLY at select schools so they can move to those schools if they wish). Sixth grade parents have no idea who the teachers will be, what the situation for their students will be like, etc. They have angry students who have been looking forward to graduation from elementary and to having greater learning opportunities. There will be no additional programs like sports or band or extracurricular programs that help further develop our students as team players and creative students.

They have also now decided, again with no clear transition plan or even any efforts yet, to combine two rival middle schools into one. They have "riffed" all the administrative staff from one thus making it clear it is not a "combining" but rather a forcing of one school into another. There are resource officers in the district who have raised serious concerns about this with the administration but they do not care.

The other thing is...CCUSD will not have all-day K for more than one more year. They have severely underestimated the anger they have caused by closing a school with little or no regard to the north part of the district and/or without fully exploring all other possible options.
They have projected a 70-student loss for next year. There are 70 students already enrolled outside the district in other schools (40 in 7th grade at one and 30 in 6th grade at another). That is only two schools and only one grade each. I believe their ADM loss will be closer to 140-210 and then all the parents who think that closing a school does not affect them and all the smug teachers at the middle school that is remaining open who have said "it is only bricks and mortar" will not be so smug when they are out of work in 2011/2012.
They had predicted their new schools that they were going to open (again, how can you open schools when you are closing one because you are broke? Does that make any sense?) or "upgrade" by putting kids in uniforms and calling the programs "honors" have not drawn the students from outside the district they were promising.

Students are not only leaving the district in droves; they are leaving their parents' override and bond "no" votes behind. I am tired of voting for schools in the south part of the district to be built and funded when those parents refuse to care about anything but themselves. The animosity this district administration has created among schools and parents and organizations is appalling.
I have three predictions:
1.) All-day K will last NO MORE than one more year at CCUSD
2.) All programs (art, music, pe) that CCUSD adminstrators say are being "saved" by closing DAMS will be gone in 2011/2012
3.) CCUSD will need to re-open DAMS in 2012/2013 when Section 16 sales pick up.
Was it worth it? BTW, my child had 1/2 day kindergarten and the second half day I paid for (it was a LOT less than pre-school and the teacher was fabulous) and that child is in all honors classes in middle school on principal's list carrying an average of 97% across ALL classes. Kindergarten is not a required grade in this state so, technically, the state has no obligation to pay for it AT ALL.
I am not saying it should be eliminated, just saying this is very short sited of CCUSD. Save all-day K at the expense of so many other things.
They could have temporarily gone back to half-day kindergarten with plans to reinstate when the economy allows. This is what happens when administrators surround themselves with people who either think just like them or are afraid to challenge them to look at all sides of an issue.