Archive: News

"It was an epiphany!  It was an epiphany!" 

Lansing School Superintendent is talking about the decision made this week to move the 5th Grade into the Elementary School starting next school year.  Lewis sent a letter to parents yesterday explaining the reasons behind the move.  "The decision to implement this change is rooted in research supporting the contention that fifth grade students are more characteristically aligned with their fourth grade counterparts than they are with grades six through eight students who are experiencing some of the most rapid intellectual, emotional, social and physical changes in their lives."

In the original plan the District office would be located in the South end of the Elementary School (right), with a separate entrance, taking four rooms, two and two across the hall from each other.

The move also solves the logistical dilemma of relocating the District office.  Originally slated to go into the Elementary School, it will now take over the space vacated by the fifth grade in the Middle School.  Lewis says in his letter, "I emphasize that the benefit for students serves as the primary basis for this change."

Lewis and Director of Curriculum and Staff Development Deborah Pichette got the idea as they were pondering student needs and the District office move.  "Deborah and I were talking about our conversations with teachers," says Lewis, "especially teachers at the fifth grade level who were expressing concern about the Middle School schedule and the fact that fifth graders have 39 minutes in nine period classes.  Wouldn't it be great if they had more time with less students?"

Pichette says the facilities committee will choose where grades 1-5 are located.  It won't matter which rooms they choose, because they are all standard elementary school classrooms.  The approximately 70  fifth grade students will need five of these classrooms.  To facilitate that some programs will double up in other rooms.  

The two child care rooms were empty most of the time, so they will go to the cafeteria.  The instructional support programs will merge with the ESL teacher, one will go with the reading teacher, one will go where Pichette's office currently is.  "It just means sharing a little bit," she says, "because they are small group instruction rooms."

That makes four rooms.  "We have a declining enrollment at the elementary level," Lewis explains.  "The projection shows us to be losing 16 students next year in K-4.  There is one teacher retiring, and at this point we are holding that position in abeyance.  We may not fill it."  That provides the fifth classroom.  "It's a very feasible reduction at this point, because the class sizes at the Elementary School are very, very acceptable.  Even if we eliminate that position you are looking at class sizes of 18."

Lewis says moving the District office to the Middle School will save taxpayers $200,000, because updating ventilation and heating in the Elementary School would be necessary if year-round offices were located there.  The original plan was to locate the district office on the South end of the Elementary school, with the Superintendent and Director of Curriculum offices on one side and the others across the hall.  "We had some major problems with this," says Lewis.  "Not only because of the heating and ventilation, but security as well.  We do not want people walking through here and going into the main stream of the building, so we'd have to do some redesigning of the area to make sure that didn't happen."  He said they would also have had to knock out bathrooms.

The security issues that would have presented a challenge in the Elementary School will still exist in the Middle School.  But Lewis says they are there to a lesser extent in part because the main entrance will be used, and in part because the kids there are older.  He also notes, "We're going to be here, our secretaries are going to be here.  We're going to be able to see the flow of traffic."  He plans to consult with parents and to ask the architects to help with a solution.

Lewis and Pichette say that teachers and staff were concerned that they were not included in making this decision.  "We'll take the hit for that," says Lewis.  We'll take the hit that this was a unilateral decision that we rolled out to the staff.  But in the next breath we said hereafter it's going to be a collaborative effort to make this thing work.  Because it's good for kids and it's right for kids.  The timing of it was the basis for us to make the decision unilaterally."

He says he would have preferred to include the staff, but the timing required a quick decision.  "If this were September that would have happened," he explains.  "This is March.  We have a Board mandate to move the District office by August."

Other logistical decisions that the staff will have a hand in making include increasing resources for the added student load, making sure there is adequate bus transportation, and choosing which rooms each grade will be in.  Fourth graders who would have moved into the Middle School next year won't lose things planned for this year.  "They get their trip," says Pichette, " they get their graduation ceremony.  And they get a trip and a graduation ceremony next year.  Mrs. Carr (Interim Elementary School Principal) has already met with the fourth grade students and explained it to them."

Classrooms in this hallway in the Middle School will house the Superintendent's office and the Director of Curriculum and Staff Development's office.

The planning for the District office will be finished in the Spring, but construction won't begin until school lets out.  "It's nominal.  A couple of doors, a couple of walls.  They're nice rooms, they don't need a whole lot."  The old district office may be used for storage.  "We spend $2200 a month for that trailer sitting out there, so let's get rid of the trailer," says Lewis.  This place could save money if we took everything out there and put it in here.  It would be easier access, too."

While the move is a significant change for the District, Lewis is convinced it addresses academic and curricular needs as well as providing a solution for the office move.  "You heard it at the meetings," he recalls, referring to the Ad Hoc Facilities committee that was largely responsible for sending the District's capital improvement project back to the drawing board.  "'You're not thinking of alternatives, you're not thinking outside of the box.'  This is an attempt to think outside the box, to focus on kids' needs and save taxpayer dollars.  It's win-win."

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Click here to read our October 2005 story on why the district offices are being moved.

Note:  Both the Elementary and Middle School Principals were contacted for comment on this story, but both declined to do so on the grounds that it is too early in the process.
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