El Paso parents want better communication from district
Saturday, August 18, 2007 8:40 PM CDT
EL PASO — A controversy about busing some El Paso students to Gridley has prompted the school superintendent to concede communication needs to improve.
Still, El Paso-Gridley Superintendent Bill James said the decision to bus some kindergartners and third-graders from El Paso to Gridley was intended to help all students by equalizing class sizes.
“The administration and I have the needs of the whole school district and all the students at heart,” James said.
The district will continue to look for a better way to balance class sizes in the future, James said.
About 25 to 30 parents attended a two-hour question-and-answer session with the school board Thursday night, and about half of them spoke. They said they weren’t happy with the busing decision or with how they heard about it.
“The plan was hatched quietly,” parent Joe Vest said Friday.
Parents want to find out personally about issues that affect them rather than being expected to pick up information in board minutes or newspaper articles, James said.
Some El Paso parents would like to see the district build a bigger elementary school building so their children don’t have to be bused to Gridley. But many taxpayers would be against additional building if the current facilities, including those in Gridley, aren’t being used efficiently, James said.
The school district decided to use busing to balance class sizes after considering and turning down other options, including establishing attendance centers. In those centers, all district students in one grade would go to school together, regardless of their hometown.
Without shifting some third-graders, those classes would average 26 students in El Paso and 15 in Gridley. By busing El Paso students to Gridley, the classes will have about 22 students.
Of the 25 children selected for the move, one moved, others will be home-schooled and 19 to 22 likely will be bused to Gridley when school starts, James said.
Selection by random drawing
Students were initially selected by a random drawing, but some factors, such as special education requirements, were taken into account, James said.
“Some parents thought the process was too random, and others (it was) not random enough,” James said.
The El Paso parents whose children will be bused to Gridley only found out two weeks before school starts, and parents said that wasn’t enough notice.
Ed and Kelly Faulk had two children in the designated age groups. Their kindergartner will stay at the school three doors from their home, but their third-grader must attend Gridley.
“She took this much better than we did,” Kelly Faulk said of her daughter, Kayla, 8. “She’s OK with it this year, but she wants to go home (to school in El Paso) next year.”
Ed Faulk said he wants a timeline from the board showing when they will make decisions on the matter.
Faulk also wants communication improved.
“It (sending a letter) only makes sense if you do something that will affect a whole class,” he said.
Vest and his wife, Lucie, also have a kindergartener, Katie, 5, and a third-grader, Calvin, 8. Katie was chosen to go to Gridley.
They have decided to home-school both children instead.
Lucie Vest is a secretary at the grade school her children would have attended.
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