Statement to the board re: Declining Enrollment By Jen Brogan and Karina Ilardi

Good evening! Karina and I wanted to address the board regarding our recent PALSS meeting on March 26. This was a terrific meeting with collaboration from parents, teachers, administrators and Mr. Oase our school board member. At this meeting, we talked about the challenges the district faces regarding declining enrollment and some ideas to remedy the situation. One thing that is a huge problem for teachers, parents and students is the singleton classes. One teacher at the meeting reported that teachers are unable to collaborate with each other. Also, each year, teachers with lower seniority are consistently being bumped out of their grade level and even out of their schools. This results in low morale. I know you have all observed outstanding teachers. Teachers that are experts in their craft can achieve amazing results with their students. Many times teachers have a niche and a passion for teaching a certain grade level. Imagine an exceptional 8th grade teacher who is very skilled in teaching the advanced math kids placed in a 1st grade class at a different school or a phenomenal 6th grade teacher being moved to 3rd grade. These events could be avoided if we eliminated singleton classes. From a parents perspective singleton classes can negatively impact the students. These groups of 30-35 kids are with each other from Kindergarten through 8th grade. If students should be separated from one another there is no opportunity to do so. This can result in classroom behavior problems. Also in singletons, there may be a disproportionate number of low achieving students that the teacher must spend extra time with. Sometimes, the higher achieving students are not getting the challenges they need because they spend time tutoring the other students or working independently while the teacher works with the lower ability students. By eliminating singletons teachers can balance classrooms more effectively. I am going to turn it over to Karina right now who is going to present some potential solutions to this problem. As you know, Jen and I started PALSS last year, due to the large numbers that we saw leaving the district over the past few years. Albert Einstein once said, The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have been dealing with the singleton class situation in the district for the past 3 years now. The community was told 3 years ago that a committee would be formed to come up with solutions to the problem. To our knowledge, a committee has never met or taken steps to correct this problem. The excuse we often hear in Ripon when it comes to education is Well it has always been done this way, so we cant change it. This is an outdated thought process. Education is an ever evolving institution and we must keep up with the times and what the needs our students are. Our district is not able to provide what we need in 5 schools with our enrollment numbers. PALSS is looking for solutions for the immediate future to remedy this problem.

I am going to report on some possible solutions that the district could use to address this issue. *Increase/reconfigure our current enrollment at each of the elementary sites so singleton classes can be avoided completely. Ideally each grade level should have a minimum of 2 classes per grade level. We currently have about 2,118 students enrolled in our 5 elementary schools. If we increased our enrollment level at each site from 400 to something near 600, we could eliminate singleton classes. This would put each school with 530 kids per school at the enrollment we currently have. This would fill 4 schools and leave one open allowing for a couple of options. This option is one way to redistribute the number of students we have currently enrolled now. *Open a district sponsored charter school or academy in Ripon. This is a draw for those leaving the district looking for this option, as well as could draw new students into Ripon from surrounding communities. 20 elementary students left the district last year for charter schools. That is approximately $120,000 lost in ADA. A visual and performing arts Charter school, or a STEM Charter could be started. *Change the configuration of our schools to have two K-3rd grade schools, and 2 4-8th grade schools. This option has been done in Manteca Unified School District. This allows for great teacher collaboration in these two settings. *Another option would be to use the Ripon Elementary property to expand the High School. This allows the high school to be able to grow and stay in the downtown area. With its proximity to the high school now, it could be an ideal situation since the high school property is land locked. The idea that the district will take care of the singleton classes with the building of Weston as those students are displaced into other school sites does not fix the problem. Those classes are going to stay as Weston students and will only be there for a year. We need a long term solution to the problem. If we increased/restructured enrollment at each school site next year, we could eliminate singleton classes and have 4 school sites running. Much like the district plans to do when reconstruction starts at Weston. When Weston is completed you have the open school site available to house Colony Oak students while their school is being reconstructed and then the district can convert to one of the above options for the open school site. At our last PALSS meeting another area of concern came up, the lack of electives at the high school and elementary level for students. In our discussion, we all knew of families who had left the district for this reason. We need to include more electives, return GATE at the elementary schools, and include more opportunities for students to be well rounded learners by including more science, social studies, art and music to the curriculum. One way to help with being able to teach electives to students at the 6-8th grade level would be to switch classes between the 3 grade levels at the school sites, much like you do in high school. This would solve a couple of issues. If 6 teachers were collaborating on teaching electives, it makes it manageable to cover different topics. Electives could be taught once or twice a week and could include classes like art, drama, choir, yearbook, leadership, student newspaper, computer science, cooking/food/nutrition, or

athletics. By switching classes at the 6-8th grade level, this helps students transition to high school a little easier as well. Again, if we have singleton classes it makes this elective situation very difficult to pull off. Parents are looking to provide opportunities for their children to receive a well-rounded education. We need to remember that our focus in education is to educate each individual and become a well rounded society member, not just someone who can do Math and Language Arts. I think the biggest reward you would see from doing these types of things would be that kids will love school againlearning becomes fun and not just more paperwork! Lets be proactive as a district and not merely reactive to things that we cannot control. Adding more options to our K-8 system will be more attractive to parents and show them that we are striving to meet the needs of all of our students. We want to keep Ripon the jewel of the valley and by providing a rigorous, well rounded education system and a well thought out Master Plan for the District that appeals to all families will help to keep that jewel sparkling.