Board of Education OKs student transfers

The Rockville Centre Board of Education stirred up controversy when it approved a resolution allowing parents to transfer their children from crowded classes to smaller classes at other elementary schools.

The resolution, which passed unanimously at the July 9 Board of Trustees meeting, will allow parents of children in kindergarten through grade 5 whose classes that have 23 or more students to transfer them to another school where the average class size is 19 or fewer. Parents will be able to transfer their students only in the 2013-14 school year, but those students will be allowed to either stay in their new school for all of elementary school or transfer back to their original school.

According to Superintendent Dr. William Johnson, enrollment across the district has not increased. The cause of the larger class sizes in some schools, he said, is the uneven distribution of students. “So there’s concern that we will have, for example, more than 25 per class,” Johnson said.

As of now, there is one affected grade level at Covert, one at Wilson, two at Watson and three at Hewitt. Parents with students in those grades can transfer their students and were notified by the district via a letter.

Parents can choose the school they would like their child to attend, Johnson said, and the district will do its best to accommodate them. Under the resolution, siblings of transferred students will be allowed to come with them to their new school.

Normally, when a class approaches 25 students, the Board of Education looks at what can be done. Options include hiring a teaching assistant, moving students and breaking up the class. Each class is addressed by the board on a case-by-case basis.

Previous attempts by the district to redraw school boundaries have been met with strong resistance from the community. Even with this voluntary relocation, some parents are upset by the board’s decision.