Parents protest year-round school plan

The district decided April 1 to place Galloway, David Cox, Gibson, Twitchell and Vanderburg elementary schools in Henderson on year-round schedules.

Gibson and David Cox were later spared the change, but nine other schools in the district weren’t. On Thursday, the district reversed its decision and allowed Vanderburg, Twitchell, Goldfarb and Tanaka elementary schools to have nine-month calendars next school year.

Only five elementary schools in the district, including Galloway, will be converted to year-round schools in the fall.

The decision left some parents fuming.

“They already had a decision in mind regardless of how many parents were here tonight,” said Galloway parent Greg O’Brien.

Parents from some of the schools lobbied the School Board, held protests and met with district officials.

The district’s flip-flopping had many Galloway parents at the board meeting Thursday wondering why their campus wasn’t as fortunate as other Henderson schools.

“It’s not right that they can decide one thing one day and a few days later decide another,” said Tammi Bergmann, who has a son in fourth grade at Galloway.

Many Galloway parents complained that year-round schools cost more to operate than nine-month schools. They said year-round schedules would prevent their families from spending time together because older siblings of elementary students attended nine-month schools.

“The only advantage of going to year-round is that you put more butts in seats,” said Colleen Hutchinson, a parent of a fourth-grader at Galloway. “The disadvantages are many. The biggest is disrupting of families.”

A year-round campus allows the district’s latest elementary school prototype to hold about 200 more students than a nine-month calendar does.

Lauren Kohut-Rost, the district’s deputy superintendent of instruction, said schools that were spared going to year-round did so with the understanding that no new portable classrooms would be added to their campuses. The district uses portables at schools with growing populations to make up for the lack of classroom space.

Kohut-Rost said some schools that were converted to year-round had enough classroom space but not enough space in other areas, such as lunchrooms and bathrooms.

Superintendent Walt Rulffes told the crowd that when the 1998 bond was passed, it was done under the assumption that all elementary schools would eventually go to a year-round calendar. He said the program has been so successful — 101 new schools, or 13 more than anticipated, will be built under the bond — that many elementary schools have been spared from going to year-round.

Rulffes said that if all elementary schools were nine-month schools, about 40 to 70 more elementary schools would have to be built, which would cause an unnecessary burden on the taxpayer.

“It would be virtually impossible to find land for all those schools,” he said.