Amherst Schools Organization Committee (ASOC) Report

Executive Summary:  Report to the Amherst School Committee on Current Status and Alternatives Regarding the Organization of the Elementary Schools

The Amherst Schools Organization Committee (ASOC) was designated by the Amherst School Committee to summarize the current configuration of the Amherst elementary school district and the issues that arise from that configuration, and to identify other potential configuration options and the pros and cons of each.  The committee included teachers, parents from each elementary school, administrators, and a School Committee liaison, and met between October 2007 and March 2008.

The Research Base (or Lack of It)

The ASOC looked at research on impact of concentrations of poverty on school effectiveness, grade-span configuration, magnet schools/controlled choice, and transitions.  Kahlenberg’s work[1] indicating that majority-low income schools face disproportionate challenges in generating student achievement was seen as compelling.  There is a noticeable lack of research on the merits of various grade-span configurations at the elementary level.  The literature on magnet schools and controlled choice was not viewed as helpful in our smaller, less-urban context.  Transitions are generally seen as a disruptive experience for students and are often associated with short-term term negativeoutcomes in a variety of areas (e.g. social/behavioral adjustment, academic achievement, school satisfaction), but the long-term impact is less clear.

Current Status of the Amherst Elementary Schools

• 1350 students[2]; four schools - Crocker Farm, FortRiver, Marks Meadow, and Wildwood. 
• Four geographic districts - all students from each region theoretically attend grades K-6together. 
• But 105 students (8%) attend an elementary school outside their attendance district.
• General diversity - more than 30 different languages spoken; over 40% students of color.
• Specific variations - Crocker Farm more Hispanic/Latino; FortRiver and Wildwood more Asian; Mark’s Meadow, close to UMass, more international students.  

Issues Arising from the Current Amherst Elementary School Configuration

 Concentrations of disadvantaged students.  59% of Crocker Farm students are categorized as low-income, compared to 34% at Mark’s Meadow, 26% at FortRiver, and 18% at Wildwood.  Crocker Farm also has higher proportions of Limited English Proficient and Special Education students than the other three schools, though these differences are smaller. 

Variation in class sizes/configurations, for non-educational reasons.  With seven grades in four schools of differing sizes, Amherst class sizes/configurations vary significantly from grade to grade and school to school.  This problem is particularly acute at the smaller schools, which have used a variety of strategies including multi-grade classes (difficult in the MCAS era) to reduce this variation.  

Potential staffing inefficiencies.  Distributing teachers from the same grade across four schools can cause inefficient use of staff.  If the district could have more classes per grade in the same building, that could allow for more uniformity of class sizes, in turn potentially allowing the district to teach the same number of students with fewer teachers. 

Limits on teacher-student matching and grade-level professional development.  With teachers from each grade spread across four schools, there are relatively few teachers per grade in each school.  This limits opportunities to flexibly match students with teachers that match their learning styles, and to have grade-level teachers working together regularly on team-teaching, peer feedback, and other instructional and development opportunities. 

Other physical variations in the educational experience across schools.  FortRiver and Wildwood have vestigial open-classroom partitions that do not reach the ceiling, leading to noise and circulation problems.  Mark’s Meadow was built in 1958 and is showing its age; it also lacks a cafeteria, so students eat in their classrooms.  Mark’s Meadow does have an auditorium for assemblies or performances; the other three schools have multi-use gyms or “cafetoriums.”

Sources:  Student numbers and demographics – District office 4/10/08; MCAS data – MA DOE website

Questions for the Committee Arising from the Current Configuration

1.  Do differences in school populations amount to an inequity that should be remedied, and if so, how?  One school has a far larger proportion of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch than the other three.  Consistent with what one would expect on the basis of research on the effects of high poverty rates in schools, this school has somewhat lower MCAS scores, and staff and community members have expressed equity concerns about having one school with a significantly more disadvantaged profile than the others. 

2.  Are there reasons other than equity to consider changing our present school configuration – would differently configured schools be more effective and/or efficient than the status quo?  For example, if certain grade levels were focused in fewer schools rather than being spread across four schools, class sizes could be more consistent, there could be new opportunities for teacher collaboration, and so on.  On the other hand, such a configuration would reduce the sense of Amherst having “neighborhood” schools and increase the number of transitions from school to school, could increase transportation costs, and so on. 

Alternative district organization options

• Keep current configuration, but add extra resources for Crocker Farm
• Keep current configuration, but adjust attendance zone boundaries so that the schools are more similar in their percentages of students eligible for free and reduced-price meals.
• “Pair” existing schools (e.g., Crocker/Fort River and Marks Meadow/Wildwood), so that half of the children in Amherst would go from one primary school to one intermediate school together.
• Combine grades 5 & 6 in one school (known as upper elementary school); three K-4 schools (known as lower elementary schools)
• Move the 6^th Grade to the Middle School (not considered, but maybe should be)

Conclusions

 Our work was motivated by the issue of equity across the elementary schools, and certainly our findings point to issues of inequity in the current system, with one of our elementary schools having a significantly higher proportion of low-income students than the other three.  The current configuration creates other problems for our community, including the challenges that emerge when children from very different schools are joined together in the middle school in 7th grade, the financial inefficiencies of the current system, and potential instructional benefits to be gained by bringing together more grade-level teachers and students per building.

We encourage the School Committee to create awareness (among parents, teachers, and community members) about the costs and benefits of the current system as well as the costs and benefits associated with various alternatives.  In addition, the School Committee may want to consider a combination of short-term and long-term approaches for creating a more equitable, efficient, and effective school organization.

 Preliminary School Committee concerns

• Equity
• Believe all children are smart and capable
• Providing supports IN the system
• Scale and ‘clusters’ of needs (ex. Language) with more rooms in a school
• Grouping and regrouping
• Teachers together (grades, subjects, specialists, programs)
• Same educational opportunities in all schools
• Alignment
• Race, class, language differentials addressed
• Optimize resources (same staffing, smaller classes, efficient staffing)
• Expenditure efficiencies (furniture, texts, etc.)
• Shared experiences
• Developmentally appropriate
• Staffing efficiency
• Students not being the “one/only” person of color in a class 

Logistical issues

• Transportation
• Transitions
• School size variance

Committee Membership.  The ASOC membership included representatives of the various stakeholders in the district, including teachers, parents from each elementary school, administrators, and a School Committee liaison.  Committee members were: Clare Bertrand (Crocker Farm parent), Elizabeth Devlin (Crocker Farm teacher), Claire Hamilton (Wildwood parent), Mary May (Marks Meadow teacher), Kathryn McDermott (Wildwood parent), Felicia Mednick (Mark’s Meadow parent), Michael Morris (Crocker Farm Assistant Principal), Meg Rosa (Marks Meadow parent), Catherine Sanderson (Fort River parent), Ray Sharick (Wildwood parent), Derek Shea (ARHS guidance counselor), Michele Spirko (Fort River parent), and Andy Churchill (School Committee liaison).  Superintendent Jere Hochman also participated in a number of the meetings.