Wyandotte decision still raises questions

CENTERVILLE — Some stakeholders at Wyandotte Elementary are still at odds with the district mandate requiring all schools in the parish to departmentalize kindergarten and first grade.
The school has been in compliance with the directive the district administrators demanded since Aug. 12. However, not all have been pleased with the results.
Departmentalizing means sending students to different teachers for different subjects rather than having one teacher for all or most subjects.
At Thursday’s school board meeting, Jean Paul Bourg wanted to know why the policy is being implemented throughout the district rather than allowing principals to make decisions requiring a move that other parishes aren’t making.
“Why are we trying to be the innovators?” Bourg questioned.
Bourg presented the school board with a packet of collected data to support his arguments as well as a petition with the signatures of 100 parents from Wyandotte who disagree with the mandate.
Bourg made reference to a meeting he had with Superintendent Theresa Bagwell and Assistant Superintendent Joe Stadalis at which Bourg asked the question, “How many other school districts are departmentalizing the kindergarten and first grade classes [in the state]?”
Bourg said the reply from Bagwell and Stadalis was that they did not know.
“So, we went and found the answer,” Bourg said.
Bourg said that contact was made with 62 of the 64 parishes in Louisiana and “we found one that started departmentalizing in first grade of the 62 we contacted, five schools leave it up to the individual school, one in which a school is piloting it while all the other schools in that district are self-contained, but we did find one that departmentalizes kindergarten and first grade: St. Mary Parish. Then we found 54 that do not do it in kindergarten and first grade. …
“Pre-K4 has two hours of center time and one hour of nap time. So we are going from Pre-K4 to kindergarten where you have nothing. That’s a hard transition for those kids to go from that to nothing in kindergarten,” Bourg said.
Bourg said the new transitions cause a loss in instructional minutes. The kids have to be moved from one classroom to another between subject matters, plus you lose the time it takes to settle them down and get them back ready to learn.
Bourg also addressed policies that the stakeholders felt are not being followed.
“As far as I know, most of the school board members I talked to, none of them really knew about the departmentalization. It was something they found out about once they started hearing the complaints,” Bourg said.
Another policy Bourg addressed was “kindergarten will be informal in nature and teacher-directed with student-initiated activities. Are no center time and 11 transitions (in a day) informal? I don’t think it is. There is no play time and no nap time.”
Bagwell responded by saying the idea to move forward with departmentalization came from the need to “offer students in-depth instruction as dictated by state standards and using state prescribed Tier I curriculum.”
Bagwell said “[Depart-mentalization] was researched, vetted, piloted, and closely monitored during the first year of districtwide implementation.”
Bagwell said that before the scheduling changes were put in affect again in the 2019-20 school year, discussions were had with principals of the schools and minor adjustments were made to fit each school’s individual needs.
“However, no significant concerns or complaints were raised by any teacher, principal, or parent,” Bagwell said.
“Additionally,” Bagwell continued, “as the schedule has received recent media attention, teachers and parents have reached out to district staff and principals to express their support and positive experiences.”
“School personnel at every elementary school have described benefits to students, including decreased behavioral problems, increased student attentiveness, quality time for all four core subjects and ability to offer students more in-depth, focused instruction with intentional differentiation through a variety of teaching styles,” Bagwell offered in support of the district mandate.