Blog

Answers provided by Steve to 4/29 Update:

“1.  The K class that could possibly move into Zervas is from Mason-Rice, from parts of that district that are expected to be reassigned to Zervas in every scenario we have discussed over the preceding months.  It has nothing to do with Peirce.  This is about dealing with an anticipated overcrowding issue at Mason-Rice as there is a question about whether they will have enough K space in the fall, depending upon how enrollment moves.  This move is noteworthy only because of the timing, as it may come a year before most of the other moves associated with citywide student assignment.  And it is an example of the specific value that an expanded Zervas offers as our citywide enrollment continues to grow.

2.  “Capacity”.  It was not well stated at the SC meeting but the basic concept is this:  take the number of full-sized classrooms and multiply them by the targeted average class size.  For example take a school with 16 full sized classrooms and say our average class size is 20.  The “capacity” of this school would be considered to be 320 students.

The capacity number is not a hard and fast planning tool but is being used by the working group to get a feel for the relative crowding of each of our elementary schools.  To me what ultimately matters is whether space constraints compromise the teaching and learning that can take place in a building.  In some cases this is obvious, like at my children’s own home school of Zervas, where until the last two modulars were installed special ed teaching and instruction for ELL students were delivered from desks out in the hallways where the setting made effective student support difficult.  The situation at Zervas was unreasonable.  The experiences of parents regarding Peirce as well as those of the principal, teachers and aides are all valuable to us as we work on the analysis.

3.  Grandfathering of siblings.  This is absolutely our intent, to prevent a family from having kids in two elementary schools at the same time.  In terms of giving weight to the criteria, this is the highest priority of many in the working group though for the time being, while we are continuing to develop useful metrics, the working group has not ranked them.  To the suggestion that this question was hedged at the SC meeting, I hope you can appreciate that we told you what we as a group know and have agreed upon, and nothing more.  This is a process, and we are in the middle of it.

4.  I understand that a question was posed to our Ward 3 Colleague Angela Pitter-Wright about the size of Zervas and the challenge to fill it.  The central goal of our long range planning is to address citywide enrollment growth, to fix our deteriorated and undersized elementary schools, and to add capacity, especially in central locations, to deal with growth we know is coming.  Zervas is positioned to directly help Mason-Rice, Bowen, and Countryside, and along with Angier can help Peirce, Williams, and Burr as well.  We will need this capacity very soon, even if we don’t need every bit of it in the next two years.  ”

— Walk to North