Newsletter

In this issue…

Redistricting – Timeline, Process, and Public Meetings

High School Literacy Support

Longer School Day – New Start Times in September

2005-2006 School Budget

Redistricting – Timeline, Process, and Public Meetings

When the School Committee decided to close South Road Elementary School in response to declining enrollment, it also decided to redistrict the entire town and not just assign South Road students to other schools. While a complete redistricting will impact a larger portion of the community than just reassigning SRES students, it will result in a more equitable, stable, and longer lasting school assignment plan.

Here’s the plan for completing the redistricting process –

· The work of analyzing the current system, where people live and transportation times is now underway. When DATTCO won the transportation contract three years ago, the contract included software that creates and analyzes redistricting options on the computer.

· Two public workshops are planned to review redistricting work. These are scheduled for Wednesday, March 30 and Thursday, April 14 at 7:00 PM at the High School. The break between meetings is planned to give time to include feedback from the first public session.

· The School Committee has a special meeting planned for May 4 to review the resulting redistricting plan, and will adopt a plan at its May 10 meeting. At this time, everyone will know their assigned school.

· During May, each elementary school will assign students to classes.

· In early June, teachers will be assigned to classes, including teachers reassigned from South Road.

· By the end of school families will be informed of their individual child’s teacher.

· Current 5^th grade students will move to their middle school without change (PDES and WKES to Broad Rock; and MES, SRES, and WERS to Curtis Corner). Except that ten (5^th to 6^th grade) students will be moved from Broad Rock to Curtis Corner to balance enrollments.

· After the School Committee adopts a redistricting plan it will focus on a middle school organization plan. Several options that have been brought forward are detailed in a document on the district web site called Organizational Options to Address Declining Enrollment.

· Materials for the March 30 workshop will be available at skschools.net on Monday, March 28 – see it ahead of the meeting.

High School Literacy Support

In 2003, the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education issued a series of regulations regarding high school reform. These regulations ranged from proficiency based graduation requirements to high school restructuring and required districts to have programs in place to provide support to high school students reading below grade level. We also needed to get all students ready for the state assessments that require college preparatory level work for all students.

To respond to this mandate South Kingstown eliminated grade 9 and 10 English classes that were not college preparatory and put in place a three-tiered support system for students moving up to more difficult work. The first tier is a school wide disciplinary literacy program, addressing the discipline specific literacy skills students need to read and acquire information in every subject. The second tier, called Literacy Enhancement, provides targeted literacy instruction, and it is designed to meet the needs of those students reading below grade level. The third tier is intensive, separate literacy instruction for a small number of students.

Our progress to date is strong. Students in Literacy Enhancement, our tier two program, participate in this class in addition to their regular English class, and their teacher is a trained reading specialist, also certified in secondary English. At the end of the first semester, almost half of the original students are now meeting grade level expectations, and the majority of the remaining students are expected to be at grade level by the end of their freshman year. The balance will continue to receive support in grade 10.

In 2007 regulations requiring a longer instructional school day for students take affect. South Kingstown is ahead of the curve, implementing the longer day in grades PK-8 in September and phasing in at the high school. An analysis of our current school day in comparison to new regulations shows that we are short of the required time. An extended school day is part of the new contract with the NEASK.

Even beyond the regulatory requirement, the extension to the school day is an important part of the educational program of the district. We face not only increasing requirements for student performance, but demands on time for additional subject matter in areas such as support for struggling students, health, safety, and arts proficiency. The table below shows the requirement, current status and changes.

AREA	REQUIREMENT	STATUS	CHANGE	COMMENT
Kindergarten	165 minutes	150 minutes	10 minutes added in 2005	Added time brings us to 155 minutes, the additional 5 minutes will probably be added through unified arts (or full day if possible)
Grades 1-5	330 minutes	310 minutes	20 minutes added in 2005	The added time brings us to 330 minutes
Grades 6-8	330 minutes	330 minutes	12 minutes added in 2005	The added time restores a 30 minute lunch and increases passing time
Grades 9-12	330 minutes	307 minutes	13 minutes added in 2007, homeroom converted to advisory in 2005	Changing homeroom to advisory adds 10 minutes (to 317) and the additional minutes will bring us to 330

While the lengthened school day is positive in that it provides extended instructional time for students, it does create a transportation issue.

If we take our current school schedules and extend out 12 minutes for the middle schools and 20 minutes for the elementary schools, we end up with an elementary school day that runs from 9:47 to 3:47, a schedule that will result in many elementary students arriving home after dark in winter.

A solution is needed to avoid this problem. The most viable option, and one commonly used by districts, is the combination of middle and high school tiers. A revised schedule would look like:

School Level Start End Length of Day

High School 7:35 1:45 6 hours, 10 minutes

Middle Schools 7:48 2:00 6 hours, 12 minutes

Elementary Schools 8:45 3:05 6 hours, 20 minutes

In this schedule, the high school day is unchanged. The middle and elementary schools have an earlier start and finish and incorporate the lengthened day. The system would work as a shuttle, with grade 6-12 students picked up on a single tier and then busses stopping first at the high school and then the middle schools.

The one anticipated concern about this plan is having middle and high school students ride together. The practice of middle and high school students riding together is in districts across the country. Experience indicates that it is not problematic, in fact, it can even be positive. The greatest degree of bus difficulties arise on middle school routes, and the presence of older students can calm the behavior of middle schoolers. The School Committee will consider the start time change when it approves a redistricting plan in May.

A more detailed report is at skschools.net

2005-2006 School Budget

The 2005-2006 school budget goes before the voters at the April 26 Financial Town Meeting

The budget, as approved by the School Committee and the Town Council, totals $51,925,051, an increase of 6.4% above the current year’s budget. The budget will require a property tax appropriation of $40,733,076. Key components of the budget include:

· The closing of South Road Elementary School to deal with declining enrollment.

· The share of the budget supported by state aid has declined by five percent in the last five years.

· An increase of nearly one million dollars in contributions to state retirement funds due to rate increases.

· Level health care costs due to a premium co-pay, plan changes, and staff reductions.

The budget going before the voters maintains education programs for students, curriculum and professional development, and funds for textbooks and educational supplies. Last year the school department budget as approved by the School Committee and the Town Council was reduced by $1.2 million in a referendum initiated at the Financial Town Meeting.

The entire budget is available on the web at skschools.net