| Parents at Exeter school wary over possible changes BYLINE: PEG WARNER Union Leader Correspondent DATE: May 5, 2004 PUBLICATION: New Hampshire Union Leader (Manchester, NH) EDITION: State SECTION: Local PAGE: b2 By PEG WARNER Union Leader Correspondent EXETER -- School administrators have modified recommended changes to the Cooperative Middle School curriculum, causing concern among some parents. SAU 16 Superintendent Arthur Hanson would not elaborate yesterday on the modifications, but said he would present them tomorrow night to the Curriculum and Philosophy Subcommittee of the Exeter Region Cooperative School Board. The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the middle school. A group of parents of CMS students, meanwhile, has been girding for battle over administration recommendations that include grouping students of mixed ability levels and doing away with "leveling," or grouping those with similar ability levels; moving foreign-language instruction from the seventh to the eighth grade; and changing the math curriculum. The grassroots effort has gained steam as word has spread about the changes, which Hanson has said remain recommendations that still require school board approval. At a meeting Monday night attended by about 75 people with concerns about the recommendations -- and a few members of school boards within SAU 16 -- speaker after speaker took school administrators to task for what they considered poor communication about the proposal, which many in the group perceived as all ready to be implemented next fall. They accused administrators of being deceptive. As the parents group brainstormed ideas for effectively presenting its concerns, some argued that it would be better to direct complaints to the staff and administrators -- in the form of letters -- rather than to speak with elected officials at board meetings. Tony Zwaan, an Exeter Planning Board member who also clashed with the school board over plans to build a new Exeter High School in his neighborhood, said the board is "just a tool" through which the administration accomplishes its agenda. Yesterday, Hanson said school officials have taken several steps to draw parents into the process. The recommendations emerged from a "visioning summit" for the CMS community earlier this year, he said. But, according to Hanson, the turnout was low despite weeks of advertising and trying to contact parents by phone in the week before the meeting. Many of the parents with complaints are skeptical of doing away with leveling for fear better-performing students would receive less attention as teachers focus on students at lower-performing levels. According to Hanson, leveling as it is currently practiced at CMS is a bit of a misnomer. Students are grouped into either the higher-performing group, Level I, or the lower-performing group, Level II, but parents can override school recommendations. That, he said, has resulted in students being placed in Level I classes when they don't belong there. "The leveling that we have now is bogus," he said. Parents at Monday's meeting were concerned about the teachers' ability to teach the same material to different levels within the same class. Hanson said that even classes of similar-ability students require some amount of what he called "differentiated instruction," and it's simply applying to a greater extent in the upper grades the teaching methods elementary-school teachers already use routinely. CMS teachers would receive in-house instruction on how to handle the academic disparity, he said. Many in the group also have concerns that moving the foreign-language instruction out of grade seven would reduce its importance. Hanson said students now can take a half year of a language in seventh grade and half in eighth grade, but the recommendation calls for shifting it to a full year in the eighth grade. The parents' group also questioned a proposed math curriculum and how it would integrate with seventh-grade pre-algebra and eighth-grade algebra. Hanson said the Mathscapes program is highly regarded and was preferred by CMS math teachers who tested it and another curriculum. Hanson said it integrates algebra and geometry skills, but would not, at least immediately, replace pre-algebra and algebra classes. The middle school serves students from the six towns that make up the cooperative district -- Brentwood, East Kingston, Exeter, Kensington, Newfields and Stratham. Copyright 2004 Union Leader Corp. The information on this site is copyrighted and cannot be reused without the permission of The Union Leader. Return to Results Contact Information Having trouble? If you have any technical difficulties, either with your user name and password or with the payment options, please contact NewsBank at 1-800-896-5587 or unionleader@newsbank.com. NewsBank will respond within one business day; longer on weekends and holidays. |
| This website is independently produced by and for the benefit of parents and taxpayers of SAU16. It is not affiliated with and does not represent views or opinions of the Exeter Region Cooperative School Board or SAU16 Administration. This website and all of it's pages and links is a good faith attempt to provide the community with a centralized location of background information about changes that have occurred at our schools, and namely, CMS. It is not intended to attack anyone personally. If anyone sees anything contained in this good faith representation to be factually incorrect or derogatory in any way, please contact us immediately and we will review it and change it if this has accidentally occurred. |