Kindergarten back at Clear Stream

For the first time in a decade, Clear Stream Avenue School students will be together under one roof when kindergarten returns to the District 30 elementary school in September, no longer squeezed out by the building’s space constraints.

Clear Stream, the oldest school in the district, has room for 18 classes. Kindergarten has been housed at the nearby Shaw Avenue School for the past two years, and for eight years before that at the Washington Avenue Kindergarten Center.

The move is possible because some large classes have moved through Clear Stream. The sixth-grade class that graduated in 2012 was so big that it filled four sections. Typically, each grade at Clear Stream requires only two or three classes.

With space now available, the school will be able to house two kindergarten classes in September, each with a maximum of 25 students.

Principal John Singleton and Assistant Principal Yannie Chon, who have both been at Clear Stream for three years, said it has been a goal of theirs to bring back the kindergarten program.

The kindergarten shuffle

When student enrollment increased at Clear Stream in the early 2000s, District 30 converted the former Washington Avenue School, which was being used for central offices, into a kindergarten center. The administration moved to an office building on Central Avenue, and kindergartners moved to the three-classroom Washington Avenue building, which was renovated and a multi-purpose room was added. Clear Stream’s administrators were in charge of the building, and the kindergartners came to the big school for special programs.

Two years ago, in an effort to save money and with classroom space available at Shaw, the building was closed. The district eliminated a nurse and security guard, and managed to reduce utility and maintenance costs. “From an economic standpoint,” Superintendent Dr. Nicholas Stirling said, “closing Washington is actually saving us money each year.”

Space began to get tight at Shaw Avenue School this year, as enrollment crept near 800 students. Having the classrooms available at Clear Stream made the decision obvious, Stirling explained.

“It made sense because we really needed more space at Shaw Avenue School,” he said. “Those two rooms that have been freed up are actually going to be used.”

Additionally, Stirling said, it is important to have flexibility with space, because the district often has new students register near the end of the summer. Last year it had to add an extra sixth-grade class at Shaw just before school opened. According to district guidelines, kindergarten through third-grade classes should have no more than 25 students, and classes in the upper grades no more than 28.

Students in any grade who move into the northern section of the district can be assigned to either Shaw or Clear Stream, based on where space is available.

A welcome change

Parent Jennifer DiGaetano said she is thrilled that kindergarten will be housed at Clear Stream Avenue next year instead of Shaw. She said she was anxious about having to drop off and pick up her two daughters — a fourth-grader and a kindergartner — from two different schools that start and end at the same time.

With all Clear Stream students together, parents won’t have that dilemma, and the school will no longer have to provide after-school supervision for children whose younger siblings at Shaw get picked up first.

DiGaetano said she did like Washington Avenue, because it provided a good setting for children going from nursery school to full-day kindergarten. “This is the next best thing, having it at Clear Stream,” she said.

The two kindergarten teachers will be a pair from the Washington Avenue days, Sandra Aragona and Mary Kay Ficarrotta. Both taught at Clear Stream in the past.

They will teach right across the hall from each other in their own section of the building, in classrooms that are designed for kindergarten. Their furniture and supplies have been delivered, and they spent time this week setting up their rooms. “We’re very excited,” said Aragona, who taught kindergarten at Clear Stream in her first year as a teacher, 19 years ago. “We’re home.”

Ficarrotta, who has 27 years of experience in the district, returns to a classroom where she taught first grade several years ago. Both she and Aragona said the move would make kindergarten students and their parents truly feel like part of the Clear Stream community.

Long-term plans

The move to Clear Stream is not expected to be limited to one year. Citing enrollment projections, administrators said they would be able to house kindergarten at Clear Stream for the foreseeable future.

Kindergarten enrollment has declined in the past few years, Singleton noted. When the program was housed at Washington Avenue, three kindergarten classes were consistently needed. Only two classes will be necessary next year, a trend that Singleton said will likely continue.

If the 50 kindergarten slots available at Clear Stream do fill up, additional students would go to Shaw. Last year, 54 kindergartners lived in the Clear Stream attendance zone.

Enrollment peaked at Clear Stream in 2002-03, with 533 students, including 80 kindergartners, according to data from the State Education Department. The following year, Washington Avenue opened to alleviate overcrowding.

The student population at Clear Stream has been steadily declining ever since, down to 369 students in first through sixth grades in 2011-12. “I just don’t think that we will ever have four classes of one grade again,” Singleton said.

The plans for the vacant Washington Avenue building are still undetermined, and attempts to rent the building have so far been unsuccessful. The district’s Technology Department will use it this summer, as it has been displaced from its offices at Shaw Avenue due to construction. That is only temporary, however, and Stirling said that a suitable use is still being sought.