Burrell School District officials are grappling with one of the oldest questions in public education.
For decades, schools generally have used the same format for organizing grade levels: the oldest students attend high school and the youngest students attend elementary or primary school.
But what about those students in the middle, like the fifth graders at Burrell?
“The truth is, there’s really no magic formula,” said David Virtue, a Middle Grades Education professor at Western Carolina University. “There’s so many factors that come into play.”
The Burrell School Board voted 8-1 Tuesday to place fourth grade students from Stewart Elementary School at Bon Air Elementary next year and fifth graders at Charles A. Huston Middle School. Projected construction timelines for additions to Bon Air, given by the architects, would not allow Burrell to accommodate fifth grade at Bon Air next school year, district officials said.
The decision was made after the board voted to close Stewart Elementary because of declining enrollment, aging infrastructure and the desire to focus student needs at three district buildings instead of four.
In 2011, Burrell reconfigured its schools from two K-5 schools — Bon Air and Stewart — to having kindergarten through third grade at Bon Air and grades four and five at Stewart.
“Currently, in the district we can fit fourth grade at Bon Air Elementary without doing really anything except for some additional cafeteria preparation areas, and we can move fifth grade to our middle school because we have room there,” Superintendent Shannon Wagner said Tuesday.
“The question is: Do fifth graders belong in the middle school, or do they belong in an elementary school? And so that’s always the conversation that we have, and that’s the decision that we still have to make.
“I think that, in everyone’s heart, they would prefer to have a K-5 elementary, but we still have to do what’s fiscally responsible for our taxpayers.”
She said that once the architect brings back cost estimates, the district will have a better idea whether it can afford to add classrooms at Bon Air to accommodate fifth graders or have them remain at Huston Middle School.
Often, school districts factor facilities and their budget when considering reconfigurations, Virtue said.
There’s no conclusive evidence that a certain grade reconfiguration is going to lead to a certain outcome.
He said he understands the apprehension parents and families may have when sending their fifth grade student to a middle school, but, developmentally, fifth graders can handle a middle school environment, he said.
“It also provides a great opportunity for the eighth graders in the building to offer leadership or become peer mentors, things like that,” Virtue said.
In the 1990s, fifth grade was housed at Huston. Locally, Highlands Middle School in Harrison serves students in fifth through eighth grades.
“It’s not an anomaly to have a school fifth through eighth grade, and to have them in the same building,” said Adrienne Dixson, head of the Education Policy Studies Department at Penn State. “Districts can have various structures to keep them separate.
“There are ways to organize the day so fifth grade students are not in proximity with the (older) middle school students.”
At a fifth through eighth grade middle school, for example, Dixson said, it could be prudent for fifth and sixth grades to be in one section of the school and seventh and eighth grades to be in another. That’s due to where those students are in terms of adolescence, Dixson said.
Intellectually, fifth graders have more in common with sixth graders than they do with fourth graders, Dixson said. Subjects like math and writing become more sophisticated in fifth grade, Dixson said.
“The academic and intellectual differences between fifth and sixth grade is very minimal,” she said.
She acknowledged the transition to middle school can be daunting for students and families. She encouraged parents to stay involved in the process and for schools to be inviting and patient with its new students.
Virtue suggested an advisory program or period for fifth graders during the school day to help manage the transition or focus on social-emotional learning. What’s most important is having middle school teachers, administration and staff understand the needs of young, adolescent learners and ensure the focus of school operations is on students.
Featured Local Businesses
“Anything they can do to make sure the adults are connected to the kids, and that the kids have an adult they can turn to; that’s really the key to those transitions,” Virtue said.
Stephanie Simpson, CEO of the Association for Middle Level Education, said her agency has no official position on the ideal grade band configuration.
“Instead, we believe that successful middle school practices are possible within any grade configuration when implemented in a developmentally appropriate way,” she said.
Wagner said Burrell administration will draft schedules and building layouts at Bon Air and Huston with a target of being completed by the end of November. They will then present those proposals to an employee “task force” for their review and feedback.
She anticipated the district going public with the schedules in February or March.
Communications and getting students and families involved in middle school programming can help ease concerns parents may have of sending their fifth grader to a middle school, Virtue said.
He encouraged parents to advocate for strong, intentional transition periods for students going from an elementary school to middle school. A middle school also could provide richer opportunities for fifth graders than an elementary school could, he said.
“What happens inside the school is most important,” Virtue said. “If (the district is) intentional about it and talks through what that looks like, and brings parents and caregivers on board … it could end up being a very positive thing.”