By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
A planned meeting of the Burlington Area School District School Board planned for Monday evening at Burlington High School has been postponed for a week.
The district office sent out a notice Friday morning that the meeting had been pushed back a week to June 22, still at 6:30 p.m. The meeting had been set so School Board members could make a decision about uneven class sizes at a number of elementary schools in the district.
BASD Superintendent Peter Smet said the board needed more time.
“We needed a little more time to analyze the comments made and develop a proposal that addresses as many concerns as possible,” he explained.
According to data presented at a June 8 meeting, the district is predicting large classes in first, second and third grade at Winkler for the 2015-16 school year, as well as first, second and fourth grade at Cooper. Lyons has a slightly above average size (24) in third grade next year as well.
The issue lies with the district’s policy of neighborhood schools, where students generally attend the elementary school closest to their home. There are some exceptions – parents choosing to go to another school if they can, and students from the Dover area getting their choice of school because of the Dover Elementary closing several years ago.
The solutions as presented by the district Monday night include living with the current class sizes, reassigning or asking parents to switch children to other schools, hiring additional staff, ending the neighborhood school concept and clustering grades – or some combination of the above.
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