A group of about 60 people gathered at Derby’s Irving School Thursday said the administrators of the city’s two elementary schools should have a chance to turn them around before they are reorganized.
It was the second time in less than a week a group of parents reacted with skepticism to a plan floated by the Board of Education to convert Bradley School into a pre-kindergarten to second-grade school, with Irving housing third- to fifth-grade students.
Currently, students from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade go to both schools, depending on where they live in the city.
In presenting the concept, Superintendent Matthew Conway went to lengths to emphasize the proposal was just that — an idea for people to weigh in on, not a formal, fleshed-out plan.
He also acknowledged parents and children could be resistant to the change — which is why, he said, school officials want their input.
“It is a very emotional and difficult issue,” Conway said. “If you don’t start here where we are today, or where we were on Monday, it won’t be successful, as good as an idea might have been.”
“Tonight’s about listening,” he said later. “It’s not about ‘Tell me about this research, tell me about that research.’ There’s plenty of time for that. Tonight is about listening first before we go down the road of the research or the cost. If I came in with all that info, you’d be justified in saying you’re just railroading this through.”
Still, though he said the meeting was only to “examine and explore” the idea, it wouldn’t have been proposed if changes within the schools weren’t needed.
“There’s a reason to examine and explore those options,” Conway said. “We have schools that are low performing. And we need to change that.”
“Even our higher performing schools are performing below the state average,” Conway went on. “To me as an educator, it’s unacceptable if we’re not doing everything we can for our children … to say we’re OK with mediocrity is to me not why we’re here.”
Background
There is an undeniable achievement gap between Bradley, on David Humphreys Road on the generally more affluent east side of the city, and Irving, on Garden Place.
Irving has a high percentage of kids from poverty-stricken minority families while students at Bradley have higher standardized test scores, smaller classes, more instructional time, fewer disciplinary problems and more family support than the students at Irving, according to a 65-page grant application Derby schools submitted to the state last year.
Data from the school district shows that:
Of Irving’s 419 students in 2012 – 2013:
- 57.8 percent were minority
- 68.7 percent were low income
Of Bradley’s 343 students in 2012 – 2013:
- 31.2 percent were minority
- 38.8 percent were low income
The schools are two miles apart. All the kids in the city become mixed when entering sixth grade at Derby Middle School, but the achievement gap that starts in the lower grades follows them all the way through the school system.
In addition, though Bradley has students performing better, neither of two schools are meeting goals set by the state of producing students proficient on standardized tests in a number of subjects.
The school board subcommittee recommended the changes as a way to end the disparity.
In addition to ending the achievement gap, something Derby schools officials have pledged to do, the district has been also searching for ways to save money.
The last few years have seen rather bitter debates between the school board and Derby City Hall over funding.
The school board has been exploring regionalization, and the elimination of duplicate services, as a way to save money and bolster learning.
Their efforts to regionalize with Ansonia went largely nowhere. And now, judging by the reaction of parents at Bradley and Irving, Derby can’t even regionalize within its own tiny borders.
Parents React
But parents who spoke Thursday — after brainstorming strength and concerns in small groups for about a half-hour — didn’t emphasize the disparities between the two schools in commenting on the plan, or the fact that both schools were subpar.
Some did say during Thursday’s meeting that children being around more kids their same age was one of the possible benefits of a reorganization.
Others said standardized test scores may improve.
Another pointed out that the reorganization would better ensure children the same age are getting the same education, regardless of where they live.
But they were more vocal with their criticisms of the idea.
Chief among those were a lack of solid evidence showing how the plan would improve education, and scheduling and transportation concerns, especially for parents with a child in each school.
“If parents have kids in lower grades and higher grades … Having one at one school and one at another school, for working parents, it could be hard,” said Melissa Soto, who said she has two children who currently go to Irving.
But most prevalent was the idea that the principals of the two buildings — Jennifer Olson at Irving and Mario Ciccarini at Bradley — haven’t been in their jobs long, and should be given time to improve student performance.
Donna Baral, the parent of an Irving School kindergartner, commended Olson for the job she’s been doing, and said she also heard good things about Ciccarini, who was hired in May.
“They need a little bit more time to implement their plans,” Baral said. “Changing things so quickly isn’t good for their curriculum or our children.”
“Our table is full of kindergarten parents,” she went on. “Our kids would be here this year, Bradley possibly next year, then maybe back here again for the third grade, and then the middle school and the high school. That is a lot of change for such young kids.”
Baral said the plan could come with benefits — like lower class sizes, and possibly better test scores, but said she and others want to see evidence supporting that first.
“We don’t have any data about (test scores improving),” she said. “We don’t have much data about any of this.”
She also brought up the possible expansion of the Bradley School to house all Derby’s elementary-aged students — which the subcommittee’s report said may be contemplated as a “Phase II” of the reorganization — and wondered why the city can’t just move forward with that first?
“Why move the kids around when you could go straight to renovating Bradley, keeping it the way it is, helping the principals do what they’re trying to do, and then move everyone together at Bradley when it’s done?” she asked.
Conway said later that expanding Bradley would come at a “ballpark” cost of about $30 million to $40 million, and would by necessity have to involve many other city boards, commissions, and officials to bring forward.
“Is Phase II going to happen?” Conway said. “There’s no definitive answer to that.”
Reaction To The Reaction
After the meeting, Rick Dunne, a west side resident who graduated from and had a daughter attend Irving School, said he was “knocked cold” that “parents didn’t at all seem concerned about the performance level of this school, and how it’s radically different from Bradley.”
“Nobody really seems concerned that the entire district is one of the lowest performing districts in the state,” Dunne, the executive director of the Valley Council of Governments, said. “I find it hard to believe that’s acceptable to anyone.”
Ken Marcucio, the chairman of the school board, said after the meeting he wasn’t surprised by the skepticism parents showed to the plan.
A member of the school board subcommittee that made the recommendation, Marcucio said the idea was just to get the ball rolling on a discussion of the proposal.
“The committee just felt that we would recommend this to the (school) board, and then go to the teachers, the parents to see what their views were,” Marcucio said. “We knew it was a touchy issue … but we’ve got to try to improve our system.”
Conway and school officials will e‑mail parents who attended the forums Monday and Thursday with replies to their concerns and more details about the proposal, Marcucio said, after which there will be more public meetings to discuss the proposal.
He said he had an open mind about the idea.
“We just want to do what’s best for the kids in Derby. If it comes out that we keep it the way it is, we’re fine with that,” he said. “I thought the dialogue was very good tonight.”