Thread: NE: Kindergarten growing pains

Published Monday | April 28, 2008
NE: Kindergarten growing pains
BY JEFFREY ROBB
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2 ... d=10321305

Kindergarten teacher Heather Bryan knows she must make her class work no matter how many students she has.

But at Ashland Park/Robbins Elementary, the kindergartners keep coming.

In all, the south Omaha school has 195 kindergarten students. That's enough to fill eight classrooms; enough, practically, to have their own school.

A kindergarten boom is hitting Ashland Park/Robbins and moving through south Omaha and Nebraska's immigration centers such as Grand Island, Lexington and Schuyler. Likewise, Omaha's suburbs and the Lincoln metropolitan area are seeing record kindergarten classes.

The growth has led districts to add classrooms and build schools to make room — a cost that is falling on the taxpayers of those communities. In the schools, teachers and principals must regularly adjust to keep the crowding from hurting the quality of education.

Some of the eight classes at Ashland Park/Robbins, which lacks the academy status and related perks of some inner-city schools, have 25 students; 18 is OPS's maximum academy standard.

Teacher Bryan is responsible for 23 students in a class full of diversity. Some students are affected by poverty; some have limited English skills. But with a helping hand in the classroom, special tools and efforts to break up the group, Bryan is managing.

"We've adapted," she said.

The kindergarten growth is a product of a combination of trends affecting the state's largest cities, said David Drozd, a population expert at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Rural residents are moving to metropolitan areas. Young Hispanics are migrating to Nebraska and having children. Births also are up among Nebraska's white and black populations — an echo of the baby boom that followed World War II.

As a result, two distinct areas — middle-class suburbs and working-class communities that draw immigrants — are experiencing the same growing pains.

The growth isn't universal around the state.

Dragged down by declines in rural schools, Nebraska's overall kindergarten enrollment hit a low in the 2000-01 school year. Now, however, the state's largest districts account for a greater share of the kindergarten class, and the overall number of kindergartners is rising.

Drozd said he expects the growth to continue into the near future. That is the prediction in school district offices, as well.

"We don't see any letup," said Dave Myers, an assistant to the superintendent at the Lincoln Public Schools.

Thanks to a $250 million bond issue, Lincoln is building a new grade school, Adams Elementary, scheduled to open next school year, and Friday the district broke ground on Kooser Elementary. Three of the district's newer grade schools are building kindergarten additions, Myers said.

Lincoln's move away from half-day kindergarten will increase the demand on classrooms, because all-day classes can't share a single space.

With all of Millard's growth, its school district saw a record size kindergarten class last school year, and the totals for next year are projected to be at a high level.

Reagan Elementary — now in its first year — could grow to six kindergarten classrooms next school year.

To create more grade school space, the Millard district will open Upchurch Elementary in August, a project funded through a $78 million bond issue. Wheeler Elementary is building a $1.4 million addition.

The growth in the Millard Public Schools is coming despite a slowdown in Omaha's housing market. Similar reports are coming out of Papillion-La Vista, Elkhorn, Gretna and Bennington school districts.

Jon Lopez, a Millard administrator responsible for tracking the district's growth, said people are still buying and building homes.

"We are not dropping off," he said of the enrollment trends.

In the Papillion-La Vista school district, Walnut Creek Elementary is waiting for extra classrooms to arrive at two new south Papillion grade schools, funded through a $40 million bond issue. This year, Walnut Creek has 130 kindergartners — the most in the metro area outside the Omaha Public Schools attendance area.

With regular classrooms taking over the art and music rooms, students get those subjects in their regular classrooms. The kindergarten teachers decided against an all-class field trip.

The kindergartners also eat lunch in the hallway outside the kindergarten wing. The gym can't hold all of them at lunchtime.

Yet Walnut Creek has kept its class sizes in check, with 21 or 22 students per classroom in each of the six grade levels.

"It really hasn't affected what we do in the classroom," teacher Michelle Harry said.

Julie Gold, the parent of a Walnut Creek kindergartner and a substitute teacher at the school, agreed. She said she was initially skeptical about such a large kindergarten class, but praises the school and its staff.

"The kids' education is all the same," she said. "They're not missing out on anything they would have gotten in a smaller school."

In south Omaha, the 1,100-student Ashland Park/Robbins Elementary is out of space. Next school year, the school will add three portable classrooms, Principal Ray Perrigo said.

This year's large kindergarten class will necessitate the addition of a first-grade classroom next year and additional classrooms for that group of students in subsequent years.

"It's just going to continue going up," Perrigo said.

Overall, OPS is at a 22-year high for kindergarten enrollment. Around south Omaha, schools with at least five kindergarten classes are the norm.

A new elementary is on OPS's drawing board. But Perrigo can't sit and wait for that.

Each kindergarten classroom is assigned a paraprofessional to help the teacher. The school installed amplification systems for each classroom — subtle microphones to help a teacher project across a classroom.

Kindergarten classrooms have digital white boards, computers and other electronic learning aids.

Then it's up to the teachers to get around to all the students.

During reading time one morning last week, Heather Bryan's Ashland Park/Robbins class broke into five small groups. The class aide conducted reading drills with one group. Bryan worked with six students. Other students worked independently.

"We do make it work," she said.

Ashland Park/Robbins' test scores indicate that the school is making it work, too. Just seven academies had better scores on the state writing test last year; only six outscored the school in math.

"They do a super job of adapting to whatever numbers they have," Perrigo said. "It's just a great group of teachers."
• Contact the writer:
jeffrey.robb@owh.com

Rural residents are moving to metropolitan areas. Young Hispanics are migrating to Nebraska and having children. Births also are up among Nebraska's white and black populations — an echo of the baby boom that followed World War II.

Just reading this political correctness is making me sick to my stomach!

Young hispanics are "migrating" to Nebraska? An illegal invasion is now refered to as "migration."

The use of such benign terms when referring to this illegal invasion is outright dishonest and shameful, especially when committed by those who are expected to be unbiased in their presentation of facts.