200+ voice opposition to possible Boston, New Haven school changes

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Monday, Nov. 16, 2015, 11 p.m. — A large and passionate crowd filled the gym at Boston School Monday night to send a message to the county school board that says: “Leave our schools alone!”

ANTHONY ORR

More than 200 people — including teachers, parents, and cross section of community members — met with Nelson County Schools Superintendent Anthony Orr and members of the board of education to offer feedback on a plan that could separate the K-5 elementary and 6-8 middle school grades at both Boston and New Haven schools and combine them together at separate schools.

One plan would locate the combined elementary grades at New Haven and the middle school students at the Boston School.

Orr told the crowd Monday the meeting was a very preliminary step by the board to begin a discussion about the New Haven School and how to improve the quality of instruction at the school.

New requirements by the federal No Child Left Behind law is now requiring districts to track equity in instruction, which basically insures that students who attend lower-performing schools have equal access to quality teachers as students at higher-performing schools.

Orr said he would bring the information he has gathered so far — including feedback from parents, teachers and administrators Monday night — to the school board Tuesday night and let the board decide if it wished to continue to move forward in its investigation of the concept.

LARRY PATE

Board member Larry Pate, who represents the Boston area, told the group that the New Haven School’s performance has been a school board concern for some time, and now the board is looking at ways to change that. Separating the elementary grades and middle school grades was just one idea, he said.

Pate told the crowd that he was behind the school 100 percent.

“I’m here as your representative to tell you that as long as I’m your board member, Boston is going to stay the same as it is. Why would you want to screw up a good thing?” he asked, prompting thunderous applause.

But as a board, Pate told the crowd it is required to examine all ideas that can improve the education quality at all the district’s schools. The plan to divide the New Haven and Boston elementary and middle school grades is not a done-deal, he said.

Board member David Norman — who represents the southern part of the county including New Haven — attended the meeting but did not sit with Orr or Pate or address the crowd initially. His absence drew criticism from several parents, once of which asked him directly what he thought about the plan to split the schools.

DAVID NORMAN

Norman wouldn’t say if he supported the idea or not, telling the crowd that he was still in an information-gathering mode and was not ready to vote one way or the other.

HANDS OFF OUR SCHOOLS. In more than 90 minutes of comments, parents from both schools made it clear they did not believe the plan to split the schools up would be beneficial to either one. At times those who spoke about the plan were overcome by emotion at the thought of losing their existing school.

Parents cited the community’s strong support for the school as one reasons for its success, including last weekend’s 99th annual Boston Oyster Supper. Others cited the caring nature of the teachers and staff and the welcoming nature of the Boston community. Another parent praised the teaching staff, calling them her children’s “second parents.”

Several parents voiced concern that taking a high-performing school like Boston and combining it with New Haven would result in two lesser-performing schools. Several said they did not like the fact their children would spend more time riding a bus between the two schools.

One parent asked Orr and the board to look at the students at both schools as more than “just numbers.” A man who was a district bus driver said he didn’t like the idea of having younger students riding a school bus due to the things they are likely to be exposed.

Other parents defended keeping both community schools as K-8 schools.

“You don’t have a kid problem, you have a teacher and administrator problem,” one Boston parent said of the problems at the New Haven School. “Putting smart kids in a failing school won’t help. You have to fix it there, we aren’t the problem.”

One parent questioned the wisdom of the idea to split the schools.
“This is the best you can come up with?” one man asked “You don’t solve one problem by creating another problem.”

Another parent recognized that both communities are “economically challenged,” and their school identities are important parts of the fabric of each community.

NEXT UP. The school board meets at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015, at the board meeting room at the district’s Central Office on Wildcat Lane.

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