DERBY — Should Derby Public Schools combine the city’s elementary schools into a single building?

How do teachers plan to meet the growing achievement gap among white students and kids from minority and low-income families?

With the cost of education increasing each year — and the public’s ability to pay stretched to the limit — can the small Derby school district even continue to exist in its current form?

Those are some of the tough questions asked in a Strategic Plan, a draft of which was published Sept. 22. At its base level, the document provides a number of things to explore as Derby schools try to move forward.

On Monday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m. in Derby Middle School, the school district was scheduled to hold its third and final public hearing on the 60-page document.

Prior to that meeting, school Superintendent Stephen Tracy sat down with the Valley Indy to talk about the plan.

Members of the Derby Board of Education are expected to adopt the plan in December.

After that, committees will be formed to research and report back to the school board on a number of ideas raised in the plan, ranging from consolidating the school district to how educators plan to improve reading skills among third graders (assuming those ideas make it into the final draft of the plan in December).

Among the topics Tracy discussed with the Valley Indy during an interview:

  • The perception that the Bradley Elementary School is a far superior school to the Irving School.
  • Why staff training is so important to the Derby school district.
  • Why the plan is needed.
  • Feedback, so far from Derby residents.

An executive summary of the Derby school district’s strategic plan is available on the school district’s website. The entire plan is also available on the district’s website.

The Valley Indy has also posted a copy of the report, which you can read by clicking here.

Click here to read the press release announcing the public hearings.

Click here to read a previous Valley Indy article on the strategic plan.

9 replies on “Derby Schools Tries To Set Course For Future”

  1. There are (or at least last year, there were) only 416 children in the entire elementary school system in Derby???? I’m assuming that is from K-6 and that 7th & 8th go to middle school, right?

    So why are we wasting money by having two elementary schools open? Remember a few years back all the politicians could talk about was overcrowding? Where are all those kids? At the high school level, if they have 100 kids per grade, that’s a lot. Same with middle school. Yet because of the serious overcrowding, we HAD to have a middle school.

    We could have turned Bradley into a middle school, combined the 419 kids into Irving which holds a heck of a lot more — possibly double and saved the city tons of money.

    I can’t believe this. My vote, if we get to vote at all in this, is YES, close down one of the elementary schools and combine them.

    Do we have a breakdown of how many kids there are per grade? Can’t be many.

    And just saying — when those of us who are my age were in elementary school, we had 30-35 kids in a class and two classes per grade. And we weren’t over crowded, we learned to read and write and do math and went on to high school AND college. Some are doctors, lawyers, educators, and much more.

    So if anything needs to be looked at further — it’s the system who allows no child to be left behind, even if they’re not doing their work and can’t spell or do basic math or speak English.

  2. Whoops! Don’t want anyone to think I believe children should be left behind. I meant it to say that they should be held back in their grade until they can pass a test to go to the next grade. Just like we had to. But the school system now pushes kids up grades with them not being prepared and tons of them come out not being able to spell, read or make change.

  3. There are about 350 kids at Bradley and 400 at Irving, from Pre-K to 5th grade. They wouldn’t all fit into one building at this point, not even close.

  4. Thanks for pointing that out. Don’t ask me why I didn’t notice I was only looking at Irving when I clicked on the link in the article. I am such an airhead! Geez!

    I can see how that would be a tight squeeze. So I take back my vote of closing down one of the schools.

    But I still say we need to not worry about pushing kids up through the grades and making sure they’re ready to go up. Also make sure they leave school being proficient in the basics — good reading skills, good math skills, etc.

  5. My main issue has been that the blame for students falling behind has been placed almost entirely on the teachers. I graduated DHS in 2007 so high school is still relatively fresh on my mind and I firmly believe that the parents need to accept responsibility and push their kids to work harder. Most of the students I know who fell behind could have done much better if they had approached the teachers (they were always very happy to help if a student wanted to LEARN and not just pass.) Many students seemed to assume that if they do poorly they can blame it on everyone else but themselves, and many parents act the same way. It’s a real shame.

  6. I absolutely agree with you. It seems that a lot of parents expect the schools to not bruise their little darling’s egos by expecting them to do homework or study for tests. The parents have got to be involved in some way and the students have to do their part. But the schools definitely have to make sure that kids are not allowed to go forward if they can’t do the work in the grade they’re in. Period. No matter what the reason the child isn’t up to grade.

  7. My above comment is not aimed solely at Derby Public Schools but rather public schools in the country in general. There seems to have been a shift between my parents’ generation and my own in the way teachers are allowed to handle unruly students (they are practically helpless outside of giving detention,) and parents’ attitude towards their role in their child’s education.

  8. Although teachers should still continue to push their students harder. I noticed a gigantic gap between the general classes and honors classes and it should not be that way. The only times where I really had to push myself were when I took honors courses, and those courses were the ones where I really respect the teachers for making me struggle at achieving good grades…the lower classes required practically no studying outside of school. I hate to say it, but there is not much middle ground between the smartest students and the general student population because the workload is so different.

    Unfortunately I was unable to make it to any of the three public meetings this past week or else I would certainly have voiced my concerns.

  9. Same goes for me. And it’s not just public schools — it’s the norm for all schools. Teachers have no control. Parents do … and their lawyers. “My child would never do that.” “My child deserves an A even though he didn’t pick up a book a semester.” “My child has issues at home so there should be exceptions.” Not when I was in school — there were NO excuses allowed. We live in a completely different era now. 🙁

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