Last month, Winslow resident John Caraway addressed the Winslow Unified School District Governing Board with a question about neighborhood schools.
That question prompted the governing board to add Caraway’s question to their agenda for last week’s meeting. It was not listed as an action item, only as an informational discussion with input from the board, WUSD faculty and staff and the public.
The discussion was centered around the format of Winslow schools. Currently, elementary schools are divided by grade level as opposed to neighborhood location as they were in the past.
Caraway began, “We want neighborhood schools back. The system you have now is supposedly to bring teachers together to collaborate, right? If that works so well, why do we have an A, B and a D school in our district?”
He also expressed concerns about the time spent on the bus for students and the lack of connection built at the grade level schools. “The kids no longer have the rapport with the teachers and principals that they would if they were at the same school from kindergarten through sixth grade,” he said.
According to Governing Board President Sharon Greenwood, “The school board didn’t decide to go to grade level schools for no reason. There were many discussions before they made a decision. We had funding issues and we had qualified teacher issues. This model was being used by other districts and it had been proven to be beneficial academically.”
Superintendent Cyndie Mattox has expressed in previous conversations on this subject that the reasons behind switching to grade level schools were funding, teacher collaboration and class sizes, among others.
Special education teacher Toni Villanueva pointed out another reason. “I started in special education at a kindergarten through sixth grade school. I always felt like I had so many kids that they weren’t making progress. As a parent when we moved to grade level schools, I didn’t like it. But as I started teaching there, I saw the benefits. I feel that I have more of a focus when I only have first and second grade. I can communicate with teachers and parents better within those two grade levels instead of having a bigger school. I feel these kids are now making more progress.”
Other educators chimed in in favor of grade level schools. Bonnie Brennan Principal Troy McReynolds said, “I understand the concerns some of our parents have. It isn’t always convenient to have all of your kids in different schools and we do need to work on the transportation issues. But it works so much better academically for our students.”
Winslow Junior High School Principal Deb Lopez explained that during the transition from neighborhood to grade level schools years ago, she was opposed to the idea. “I went kicking and screaming. Then I saw that as a sixth grade teacher that I had 36 students one year and another sixth grade teacher across town had 12. When we went to grade level schools, I was able to mentor new teachers at the same grade level, and the district was able to evenly distribute students with special education needs and class sizes.”
The discussion continued and more reasoning behind grade level schools came forward. One recurring reason was integration. McReynolds said, “When I was the assistant principal at the junior high, we saw that when all of the elementary schools came together, we had the first three weeks of nothing but discipline problems, there was a pecking order. Grade level schools ended segregation and gave our students more equity in our district.”
The governing board decided to continue the discussion at a later time. Caraway mentioned that he has collected over 200 signatures on a petition being circulated in support of neighborhood schools.
In other business, the governing board:
* Heard a quarterly update from Matt Weber, the superintendent of the NAVIT (Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology) program. In his presentation, he pointed out that funding for the program in fiscal year 2020 was $279,171 and is expected to be similar next year.
* Chartwells, the district’s food service provider let the governing board know that they are integrating more fresh and from scratch menu items at each school site.
* Accepted the donation of an enrichment program titled Foundations in Personal Finance: Middle School Edition by Dave Ramsey to WJHS. The program cost is $1,700.
* Approved the out-of-state travel for the WJHS wrestling team to attend a tournament in Bullhead City, with lodging in Laughlin, Nev., on March 6-7. Funding for the trip will be provided by the WJHS Wrestling Club.
* Ratified vouchers in a routine procedure that allows the district to submit vouchers to the county superintendent between board meetings.
* Approved the hiring of Christie Bratt, Kim Henling, Taylor Bradley and Sarah Shumway as WJHS track coaches; Shanae Canales and Shauna Lopez, emergency substitute teachers; and Ben Montiel, grounds keeper and substitute bus driver.
* Approved the retirement of Troy McReynolds and Gary Sanderlin, both effective on June 30, 2020.
The next meeting of the Winslow Unified School District Governing Board will be at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 2, in the board meeting room, located at 800 N. Apache Ave.
