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Buena Vista school administrators provided details about the proposed move of second grade classes from Kling Elementary School to Enderly Heights to the School Board at its Feb. 23 meeting.
They also asked the Board to make a decision on the move at the next Board meeting on March 28.
At last month’s meeting, Assistant Superintendent Gennifer Miller and the principal of Enderly Heights, Devan Nicely, provided information about the move as well as some spatial and instructional advantages.
Currently, Kling provides elementary education services for students from pre-kindergarten to second grade. After completing second grade, students transfer to Enderly to attend third grade through fifth grade.
However, with an influx of prekindergarten students at Kling, administrators have become concerned that limited space is impeding academic quality. “We have outgrown Kling as far as keeping all grade levels through second grade there,” Miller said. “We have speech I believe is on the stage, we have people [teaching] in closets, we have the need for a selfcontained room at Kling and we have no place to put it.”
District administrators believe that the conclusion of this school year would be an appropriate time to make this transition as Kling will already be welcoming a new principal.
“Right now, it’s an optimal time to do this we feel, because of the change in administration. [Kling is] going to have a new administrator anyways, so making that move to Enderly would be [with] a new administrator as well,” Miller noted.
As students enter second grade, they also undertake a traditional, letter grading scale. Grouping second grade students and third grade students under the same roof will create a smoother transition for the students as they begin a more rigorous curriculum, and it will also allow for more vertical planning between the two grades as third grade is also the first year students encounter Standards of Learning assessments (SOLs), Miller said. Second-graders would also have the option to participate in the after-school program hosted by EHES.
Space is no concern over at Enderly Heights Elementary. Nicely noted that the school’s class layout was already subject to undergo some changes, so space to accommodate three additional second grade classes is no problem. The younger students will be on the first, ground level and the older students will reside in the classrooms on the upper levels.
“One of the main considerations is spacing of age groups,” Nicely told the Board. “Second to fifth grade isn’t a big change, but we still would want to keep our second-graders apart from our fifth-graders as much as we can …” He continued, “[Second grade] will be on the bottom level, which means when they get off the buses, they won’t have to climb the stairs – they’ll go right in. That also separates them from the rest of the school throughout most of the day. They’re still close enough for everything like specials, security [procedures], and getting to the cafeteria, but they’re not climbing the steps and they’re not intermingling with other students during class changes.”
When BVCPS administrators were initially developing the idea to move second-graders from Kling to Enderly, they ran into some scheduling concerns as far as bus routes, specials, and lunches.
Nicely noted that lunch periods would be extended from 20 minutes to 30 minutes to allow each grade to have the cafeteria to itself.
“Each one is in there for 30 minutes, they exit, and a new group comes in. That just keeps down interactions between each grade levels,” he said.
“Specials” – classes like art, music, and physical education – will be concurrent among all grade levels and will be instituted in 45-minute periods. While students are occupied, this time will serve as planning periods and downtime for teachers.
Special periods and recess time will likely alternate throughout the week between morning and the afternoon, but Nicely is adamant about having breaks throughout the students’ day.
“By following this schedule, they either get recess in the morning and specials in the evening or it’s flipped so that they have breaks in their day, because we want to maintain that mental free time of getting up and moving around …” Nicely said.
With an increase in student population at Enderly comes a higher safety liability and a need for increased surveillance. To cover the bases, BVCPS has already instated a security resource officer and the district is negotiating a grant for another SRO in order to have an officer occupy each level of the school, Nicely said.
BVCPS has built a fence surrounding Enderly’s playground. Nicely has plans to raise the height of the fence from 4 to 8 feet. He also hopes to convert one side of the playground’s fence into a privacy wall to ward off any unwanted gazes from outside passersby on the road. The fence also helps keep the students from running into adjacent woods or from chasing after a runaway ball. This fence can be closed and locked in the event of an emergency.
As Enderly administrators and staff start thinking about next year and the potential changes, Nicely has ordered new radios for all staff members to increase their communication throughout the building.
Much like anything else, this change is going to require an adjustment period.
BVCPS administrators have already communicated with the staff of both elementary schools, but they asked for the School Board to make a decision at its regular school board meeting in March. Upon its approval, BVCPS administrators will begin the process of talking and educating students and families in April or May as to how this move will transpire for the 2023-2024 school year, Miller noted.
