The faculty and parents of Woodrow Wilson School, an arts school in the Union City school district, voiced concerns Monday about the Board of Education’s plan to reduce overcrowding in September. The Board of Education plans to add two sixth grade classes from Hudson School, a K-through-eighth grade school that does not focus on the arts, to help alleviate the district’s overcrowding problem.
The matter was discussed at a special meeting held by the Superintendent of Schools Thomas Highton Monday.
“We try to keep between 21 and 23 kids in class in the lower grades,” said Highton. “And we are doing a good job, but 250 kids come into the district during the year. They have to go somewhere.”
Woodrow Wilson School is an arts-integrated school that only accepts students by a nomination process which includes an interview and audition. The school is actually located in Weehawken but is part of the Union City district. Students can enter the school under five umbrellas: academics, visual arts, dance, drama or music.
The parents and faculty are concerned that adding the two sixth grade classes, who would not be focused on the arts, with disrupt the continuity of the program. The school already has taken a non-arts sixth grade class from Gilmore School for the past two years.
The parents said they would rather see students coming into the school at a lower grade level.
“We are aware of the overcrowding,” said Mona-Mathus. “We understand the overcrowding. We are just looking for a compromise.”
“My job is to balance out the class size in all schools,” said Highton. “We have to keep the class sizes reasonable so that kids can be successful. The school with the most space is Woodrow Wilson.”
Parents have concerns
Many of the parents and faculty of Woodrow Wilson School who gathered into the Board of Education building on April 3 said that that adding two sixth grade classes will greatly disrupt the curriculum set at Woodrow Wilson School..
“To bring in a child at the sixth grade level may disrupt the program that is in place,” said Leslie Mona-Mathus, who was elected the spokesperson for the parent group. “We are really concerned about having two sixth grade classes coming into the school.”
“Entering the curriculum at the sixth-grade level might mean that the curriculum might have to be altered,” added Mona-Mathus, who has a son in the third grade and a daughter who has already graduated from Woodrow Wilson School.
However, Highton explained that he does not want to hurt the school’s curriculum by adding two additional classes.
“We want to maintain the integrity of the program, and I am in favor of that,” said Highton, explaining that they have selected the students that would most benefit from the curriculum at Woodrow Wilson.
“[The arts school] has suffered a couple of bumps along the way,” added Highton, speaking about how the program had to move from Jefferson Annex to the new location in Weehawken. “But we have always remained focused and we have always come out a little better.”
Many of the parents presented concerns about the schools’ mentoring programs and the MIAD curriculum that the new sixth grade students will not be familiar with. A MIAD is a series of 10-week mini-courses offered at the school. The students are able to choose which MIAD they want to be involved in and are then in a MIAD with students of all different class levels.
“We are locked into taking any group of students, regardless of whether they are interested in attending our school or not,” said Woodrow Wilson Principal Ronald Trainor. “I have at least five to 10 students that don’t want to be there.”
“It comes from the bottom up,” said one of the teachers at the school who said that research shows that an art-integrated program has been very successful for students. “It is not just about class size and space.”
According to Trainor, “We do not lock teachers into one grade level.” Trainor is afraid that accepting both sixth grade classes will affect the continuity of the school’s program.
Everybody hurts
Although Highton agreed with the concerns raised at the meeting, Highton acknowledged that every school in the district has suffered due to the overcrowding problem in Union City. He added that the shop and home economics programs have been eliminated in most schools. “All other schools have given up their art rooms and music rooms, all to create classroom space,” he said.
“All 10 schools have been biting the bullet for a number of years,” said Hudson School Principal Sylvia Abbato, whose school has no library, no gym and only has music and art classes once a week.
“[Woodrow Wilson] is an ideal school,” said Highton. “I want to keep it an ideal school. I am not looking to take art rooms, music rooms or all the other rooms I took away from other schools.”
However, Woodrow Wilson School has also had its share of suffering. The school lost its first grade this year to accommodate a special needs pre-school class, and has been taking a sixth grade class from Gilmore School for the past two years.
Another solution
Although the parents at Woodrow Wilson School only found out about the Board of Education’s solution to the overcrowding problem two weeks ago, they did put a lot of thought into their complaints. The parents and faculty of the school put together their own proposed solution for the Board of Education to look at.
Woodrow Wilson School’s parents and faculty said that they are willing to take one sixth grade from Hudson School and one second grade from Hudson School, while saving one second grade for art students.
“These students stand to fully benefit from the program,” said Mona-Mathus. “They can be nurtured through the program. This is really critical to the success of the program itself.”
“We are not opposed to accepting new students into the school,” added Mona-Mathus. “We would just like them to be integrated sooner.”
However Abbato said that the reason they decided on sending two sixth grade classes was because of the Whole School Reform Model chosen by Woodrow Wilson School.
Woodrow Wilson School has chosen the Coalition for Essential Schools Reform Model, which is geared toward the middle grades.
“That is where we are hurting, in the middle grades,” said Abatto, adding that Hudson School now has three fifth grades with 28 students each and only one sixth grade classroom with 37 students.