Proposal for Tuscan/Seth Boyden merger?

It's not just about the fight over rezoning. When Marshall and Jefferson were paired way back when it had to do more with equalizing the socioeconomic balances of the schools than relative crowding at one versus the other.

Well, I guess that's what I'm trying to get at. There's no academic advantage to the pairing? It's just to avoid a political brouhaha?

cmarym said:

It's not just about the fight over rezoning. When Marshall and Jefferson were paired way back when it had to do more with equalizing the socioeconomic balances of the schools than relative crowding at one versus the other.

And that's true in this case too.

TarheelsInNj said:

Well, I guess that's what I'm trying to get at. There's no academic advantage to the pairing? It's just to avoid a political brouhaha?

I imagine it would have the potential to reduce class sizes, which could help students with academic performance.

OhHenry said:

What I would prefer would be for the school board to take a serious look at the current trends in education. To bring innovative ideas and teaching to the Seth Boyden: STEM, the arts, even to revamp the approach to multiple intelligences. The teachers need to be trained and supported.

The spark of a 20 year old discussion faded and now we've come around the block to the same place? It seems to me that what really needs to happen is to re-ignite that spark of innovation in a school named after a brilliant inventor.

I cannot agree with you more. But the main problems are threefold:
1. Structural pressures from outside (think NCLB, Common Core, PARCC, etc.) that are pushing the public schools towards a cookie-cutter approach to the curriculum. It's all about bringing up the test scores at the bottom of the curve.
2. Our current BOE seems to have no interest in fighting back against these kinds of pressure. In fact, they seem to endorse them. For example, see their attitudes towards PARCC, in contrast to nearby districts like Montclair and Livingston.
3. I see no evidence that the incoming super Ramos will bring fresh thinking to the district that will help to find an innovative solution to this situation. I pray I will be wrong.

Obviously some data would be helpful, but if it's true that SB is also reaching capacity in terms of numbers (as someone stated up thread) then rezoning the boundary between Tuscan and SB would not resolve the problem.

One nice thing about the Marshall-Jefferson pairing is that it has been a solution that has endured for decades. As folks point out, any time a change is made it is difficult for everyone. It would be nice to find a solution with a long-tern vision here given how challenging these types of changes are.

TarheelsInNj said:

Well, I guess that's what I'm trying to get at. There's no academic advantage to the pairing? It's just to avoid a political brouhaha?

With the Marshall Jefferson pairing, they were able to make Marshall much more younger child focused and this might be an academic advantage. It can have an impact on teaching styles, school culture and even how the physical environment is structured - Marshall has a lovely library nook for kids.

For what it's worth, our kindergartener is in Marshall and for a number of reasons, we have been raving about the school and its K-2 format.

It's also to avoid (potentially very significant) racial imbalance among the schools. As mentioned earlier, 20 years ago a simple rezoning would have resulted in Seth Boyden being 80-90% African Anerican. The Jefferson zone is something like 90% white. Nobody seems to have specific current data, but it is apparent that rezoning to solve the current population issues would exacerbate the already existing imbalances in our schools.

And this DOES have an academic impact, as evidenced by recent appeals from the Seth Boyden community for more resources for their school community which is already at disadvantage in that regard.

It's worth a lot. That makes sense, as does @dg64's answer above.

Then again, if there's a real advantage to K-2 schools in our district, it feels like that should be a holistic approach to ALL of the schools. Because that advantage should be available to all children, if it's "better," right? But that that becomes even more upheaval.

Someone above posted that SB has some room, but not a lot. If Tuscan is overcrowded now and the town continues to grow with lots of young families isn't possible that the issue isn't whether to rezone or somehow combine the schools, but whether new schools need to be built?

On the other hand ,The continuity of a K-5 school is a positive . Moving kids for 3rd grade and then again for 6th can make for difficult transitions. Families having kids in 3 schools over the course of K-8 can be problematic

mod said:

On the other hand ,The continuity of a K-5 school is a positive . Moving kids for 3rd grade and then again for 6th can make for difficult transitions. Families having kids in 3 schools over the course of K-8 can be problematic

This too.

TerrapinStation said:

Time to build a new school? Where would it go?

Where would we get the $$?

The Montrose School has been discussed for years. What is the latest plan for that building?

When I live three blocks from the school it seems insane to put my kid on a bus and send them to another school. My little one is so excited about walking with her big sister and going to school with her. Busing costs, splitting up families, breaking the continuity of the experience, making it difficult for parents that catch the train - Tuscan is on the way to the train, making it difficult for the teachers - a whole shift in reorganization. I know I will I hear - get a grip from some, but there seems to be other alternatives - make the school SB stronger and publicize it more, allow children in the SB zoned area to have a choice of what school they want to go to, change the zoning so that some of the Hilton neighborhood is zoned for SB because is physically closer. Both schools have their own culture and I have spoken to parents that opt in to SB that would not be happy about this either. It seems like this would be messing with a lot of people 's sense of choice. And I hope they do not spring this on everyone a week before school starts.
Here is the BOE email address if you want to voice your concerns if you are a SB and Tuscan parent -
boemember@somsd.k12.nj.us

montrose is now the early education center

It seems that there are advantages as well as disadvantages to having K-2 and 3-5 schools as well as K-5 schools.

Maybe they need to look at more opt-in choices that consider these issues so that EVERY family in the district can have at least two choices, based on teaching approaches (a la MI) and/or curriculum content (Arts/STEM/etc.), grade configuration (K-2/3-5 vs K-5) etc.

But, be prepared ... busing will need to be continued or possibly (likely?) expanded for any of these alternatives, as well as for any rezoning that doesn't result in unacceptable racial imbalance.

I doubt that building new schools is remotely possible. But more portables may be in our future.

Build the new school on the post office site!

*ducks and runs*

Getting back to the OP - is this for real? When and where is this proposal seeing daylight? Or are we just spinning wheels here?

OhHenry said:

Getting back to the OP - is this for real? When and where is this proposal seeing daylight? Or are we just spinning wheels here?

It's not a formal proposal. It is one of several ideas under consideration/discussion.

yahooyahoo said:

sac said:

LOST said:

I measured the distance back then. 1 mile door-to-door

It might be one mile "as the crow flies", but it's a good bit more than that if you drive it. (I know from the discussions about who does or doesn't get the bus to SB. The line for getting the bus is near my home which is between SB and Tuscan.)

It's 1.05 miles in a car, front door to front door.

That's exactly what my odometer read when I drove from the front door of SB to the front door of Tuscan.

Well, whatever it is, the distance between the two is clearly just a little over a mile and probably not worth additional discussion at this point. There are lots meatier issues here than whether Mapquest or Google Maps or LOST's odometer are correct.

h4daniel said:

When I live three blocks from the school it seems insane to put my kid on a bus and send them to another school. My little one is so excited about walking with her big sister and going to school with her. Busing costs, splitting up families, breaking the continuity of the experience, making it difficult for parents that catch the train - Tuscan is on the way to the train, making it difficult for the teachers - a whole shift in reorganization. I know I will I hear - get a grip from some, but there seems to be other alternatives - make the school SB stronger and publicize it more, allow children in the SB zoned area to have a choice of what school they want to go to, change the zoning so that some of the Hilton neighborhood is zoned for SB because is physically closer. Both schools have their own culture and I have spoken to parents that opt in to SB that would not be happy about this either. It seems like this would be messing with a lot of people 's sense of choice. And I hope they do not spring this on everyone a week before school starts.
Here is the BOE email address if you want to voice your concerns if you are a SB and Tuscan parent -
boemember@somsd.k12.nj.us

The problem with the argument about reorganization, continuity, etc is the success of Marshall / Jefferson. MJ parents love their schools, both of which are top notch. And the train thing, yeah sorry, no one really cares about that. They're not going to determine the educational outcome of a thousand kids based on your commute. Just saying. One thing you don't need to worry about is this being sprung on anyone. One thing I can guarantee that if this does turn into actual proposal there will debates about it for months at BOE meetings. Still don't think it's going to happen since there are many cheaper, easier to input alternatives that I think they will try before doing anything as drastic as a merger, especially with a new super coming in. (Mind you this is just my opinion..I've been wrong before!)

Gundudad said:

Someone above posted that SB has some room, but not a lot. If Tuscan is overcrowded now and the town continues to grow with lots of young families isn't possible that the issue isn't whether to rezone or somehow combine the schools, but whether new schools need to be built?

Not sure, but I think projections don't show increase over increase; we are in a population peak, which is not a good time to build a school. Over the years, several elementaries were closed.

The post office site would be big enough for the early learning center (preschool) program and the Montrose school could become a K-2.

As jfburch mentions above, the crowding situation appears to be a "bubble" which is probably best handled in the existing buildings, perhaps with the addition of temporary space (portables) for a few years. Setting up a whole new school, even in an existing building, would add additional administration and other costs that probably aren't justified for a temporary population bulge.

As for pairing versus re-zoning, it really depends on the demographics, and we are talking really here more about socioeconomics than race. When my kids were at SB, there were white families in the neighborhood zone, and black families that opted in from elsewhere in the towns, so opt-in was not a clear proxy for race.

10 years ago, the white population at SB was smaller than it is now, (29% vs. 31%) and the economically disadvantaged/FRL population was 27%. While the white/black balance has fluctuated a bit over that time period, and is affected by the addition of the "more than one race" category, that is not the big change. The big change is the increase to 37% economically disadvantaged.

An old rule of thumb (which has not necessarily been "scientifically" validated) was that at 25% FRL, the higher needs in the student population begin to make a noticeable difference--that was the original logic behind the 25% threshold for Title 1 schools. By that rule, at 50% economically disadvantaged, you really have a problem meeting needs without extraordinary resources.

SB isn't there yet, but the difference is being felt. As long as I have been here, the Title 1 schools came in pretty steadily at just under/over 25%, until fairly recently.

Given neighborhood characteristics and densities, it's not clear how one could re-zone sensibly to reduce that socioeconomically higher needs population.

And, in comparison (though I need to double check my numbers), 10 years ago, Tuscan was about 25% black and somewhere between 15% and 20% economically disadvantaged--those have come down to 18% and 10% respectively, and again, the addition of the "more than one race" classification can shift that, but at 66% white, Tuscan does have the largest percentage of white students.

It's amazing to me that 60 years on we're even having this discussion over busing and racial desegregation in Maplewood.

Mama bear, it is also about working out the kinks and that first cohort will be a part of that. So yes selfish again, like the commute. Also I would think they would want the changes to affect the least amount of people as possible, not all of the Tuscan and Seth Boyden communities.

Right about the time We started at Tuscan, school start time changed from 8:30 to 8:40 which messed up a lot of train goers' commutes. It happens, it's an inconvenience, but it's not about the commuters, it's about what works best for the district overall. I remember the issue at the time was related to busing—although not many kids are bused to Tuscan there were some, and changing the start time eliminated the need for another driver which saved thousands of dollars.