East Valley weighs elementary options

The East Valley School District has been having many conversations about how to make sweeping changes, rethinking the way it teaches students from the ground up.

After several community meetings, the school board met to discuss the ideas generated there Monday night at the district office.

Some of the ideas affected students in prekindergarten classes through the eighth grade. The board discussed whether it was better to have separate schools serving children in prekindergarten through the third grade and fourth through the eighth grade, or prekindergarten through eighth grade. Board members seemed to agree that they can’t continue with the status quo. Board member Heidi Gillingham said that the board has successfully captured the attention of the community and now that they have, to make no changes at all would hurt the district’s credibility.

“What do you all want to do?” Superintendent John Glenewinkel asked the board.

Roger Trainor, board chairman, said he hoped to see a cost list for each program. Each building that serves these students would need to be retrofitted regardless of what the board decides, and Trainor wanted to see how the two choices compare in cost.

Gillingham said she did not like the idea of separate schools. She said she liked the idea of prekindergarten through the third grade, but putting fourth graders into a school with eighth graders made her uncomfortable. She also said that since the district hopes to think in terms of ability levels rather than grade levels, if a student in the first grade is showing fourth-grade reading abilities they would need to move into the school with older students. She didn’t think that was appropriate.

She also said since the district is trying to cut down on transitions between schools, the model to split up the students would have just as many transitions.

“It looks more like the three-school model,” she said. “It’s more like we have now.”

Board member Mitch Jensen said he liked the idea that students who present higher-level skills would be able to move within the same building. He also liked the idea of magnet schools – schools with themes such as fine arts or science.

“It draws people,” Jensen said. “We want kids to be excited about going.”

Board member Mike Harris said the schools needed a culture change to energize the students.

“What will it take to get our kids excited?” Harris asked.

Glenewinkel asked the board how big they would like each school to be, adding that there doesn’t seem to be any connection between the size of the school and students’ performance.

The board decided to take a look at what the costs would be for each model.

For the split model, the board wanted numbers for a school with a capacity of 650 prekindergarten through third-grade students with team teaching, small learning spaces, safe traffic flow and outdoor play areas. The fourth- through eighth-grade schools would have a capacity of 320 students with the ability to manage students safely, high-tech learning, a recess area, cafeteria and lockers.

For the one-school model, the board wanted to see numbers for a student capacity of 650 students with lockers, a cafeteria, recess areas, safe halls, a common area, high-tech learning, locker rooms and gymnasiums, a library and science labs.

“I can get you the cost on these very quickly,” Glenewinkel told the board. He said that he looks forward to when the board can start working on the “fun work,” including magnet-school work and teaching philosophy.

At the high-school level, exploring a three-strand learning system is moving forward and the district hopes to have it up and running as soon as next year.

The system includes a fine arts strand for students interested in music. Glenewinkel said he will ask a retired music teacher to do a study on fine arts schools and find out what a performing arts center would cost. Glenewinkel said he would like the center to become a small convention center that could be rented to other groups.

An academic strand would include Advanced Placement students and general-education students. The superintendent said the district is already expanding its AP classes this fall with a statistics class, a biology class and physics.

The third strand deals with career technical education. The school has two plans to start its aviation school: a building to house the program within the East Valley district boundaries, and a combination of online classes and classroom instruction. The district is also expanding its fire science program and is moving toward an agriculture and manufacturing technology program.

With this system in place, students would have to demonstrate a mastery of core classes before they could move through the strands.

Since the meeting was a workshop, the board could not vote. It will have another workshop meeting on this subject Aug. 4 at 5 p.m. at the main district office.