Submitted by the Central Middle School PTA Executive Board
To the Editor:
This week, the Central Middle School (CMS) PTA Executive Board sent the following information to the CMS community in response to the Greenwich Public Schools and Dr. Jones’s proposal to eliminate four full-time teaching positions from CMS. We vigorously and adamantly oppose the elimination of four full-time teaching positions at Central Middle School, a priority school that has struggled to recover both academically and in terms of enrollment, following years of being housed in a condemned building and contending with disruptions and distractions, and nation-wide dips in enrollment. Now, more than ever, CMS needs the full support of all of its teachers and staff to thrive in the new building. Instead of disinvestment in a brand-new school that taxpayers spent over $100 million to build, we request and demand that GPS and the Board of Education add resources, welcome new students, open enrollment, cease waivers and allow Central Middle School to thrive.
The Board of Education Budget Committee met this past Thursday, December 11th for a budget meeting. Per GPS Administration and Dr. Jones’s recommendation, the budget proposal, if approved on 12/18, will eliminate 4 full-time employee positions (FTEs) from CMS. We strongly oppose the elimination of four full-time teaching positions at Central Middle School. The proposed budget has stated these would come directly from our core academic classes (one from each): English, Math, Social Studies, and Science. The CMS PTA finds this alarming, as it will be destructive to our middle school, break down our team model, forcing teachers to cross team in multiple grades. Students placed in those cross teams will find teachers less available to team, and will lose the benefits of the team model, something the Board of Education declared to be the “gold standard of middle school education.” Our CMS students have a right to an education equitable with their EMS and WMS peers, with whom they will compete at GHS!
Below please find our solutions and the key arguments for retaining our teachers at CMS:
- “Open Enrollment” Now!
We need to encourage the BOE to open the open enrollment process ASAP. Dr. Jones and the GPS administration continue to grant waivers to students from CMS catchment, coupled by years of a condemned building and construction resulting in artificial enrollment data. With a brand-new facility and the same amazing teachers, we strongly believe CMS will become a very appealing option for many. We encourage the BOE to:
- Allow all Parkway students the choice to come to CMS
- Allow JC magnet students the opportunity to come to CMS
- Close ISD loophole. Dr. Jones stated last week she has been allowing ISD students districted to CMS to go to EMS the last number of years.
- All tuition students should attend CMS for middle school if it has the lowest enrollment, as per past GPS practice.
- Open Enrollment to all students in the district (no bussing option)
We need to give CMS an opportunity to thrive. Our building has been condemned and then a construction site the past 5 years. With a beautiful new school almost ready to open, we need to encourage students in and the BOE needs to invest in the operation of our school.
2. Enrollment data must be accurate and must be looked at in the 4-5 year span which is typical. It also must consider the atypical number of waivers granted to families who did not wish to attend CMS due to building issues. And, as the GPS data consultant warned GPS, concerning enrollment projections, “A bit more caution…should be exercised when using these projections to make policy decisions.”
Looking only at a 2-year time frame (in which we’ve faced the number of mitigating factors discussed above) is not only short-sighted but inaccurate. If we look beyond next year, we see a continued increase in class sizes. We will be a full 2 teams to the specs dictated by 2028 6th grade. Even without additional students from Open Enrollment efforts, our current statistics would look like this.
Why would we be willing to get rid of experienced, veteran teachers for a short blip of smaller classes? Greenwich is not immune to the National Teacher Shortage. As of mid-November, the district still had 6 open teaching positions posted from August unable to fill. We will struggle to find teachers, and certainly not teachers of our caliber, to replace those who will be pushed out.
3. The CMS PTA gathered all class size data per grade per core class. We continue to disagree with the GPS Administration and Dr. Jones’s data showing CMS class size at 12 students. The average we consistently show is 14 students per class in the 6th Grade, not the 12 that the GPS Administration uses as their number, while 7th grade is 17 per class.
4. The Team Model is Best Practice for Middle Schools and especially for a “priority school” like CMS!
We support the preservation of the full mechanism of the “traditional” grade level team model approach, where students are aligned under two teams or more per grade with a dedicated group of teachers and support staff (guidance counselors, mental health workers and admin) for each. This group typically meets multiple times a week during set-aside team times in their schedule. As the schedule currently shows, a cross-team would not allow for any team time for both subjects during the school day. This would mean that 1/3 of each of the 6th grade and the 7th grade would miss out on crucial team meetings the other teachers are able to hold. As a priority school, putting students in this much of a disadvantage not only is harmful to students but also directly contradicts our School Improvement Plan.
We are also extremely concerned that Dr. Jones has mentioned multiple times that the middle school principals have been working to coordinate their schedules. If GPS Administration and Dr. Jones aren’t intending to share teachers, there would be no need for the middle schools to function on the same bell schedule. We already are feeling the negative effects teacher sharing is having on our students. Our orchestra students, for example, are now having to choose between Orchestra and Seminar, which is not equitable to what EMS/WMS students are offered. We can’t imagine the negative impact sharing a core academic teacher would have. Not only would it be impossible to team, but they wouldn’t even know or understand the culture of our school or give our students any opportunity to pop into their teachers, ask a quick question or use them as a sounding board. Our teachers are so much more than lecturers in front of students: they are mentors; they are trusted advisors; they are the students’ first stop in the morning; and they are a calm place to eat lunch on a bad day. We cannot remove access to our teachers, they do SO much more than simply teach a subject.
5. GPS Parents are the Reason the BET changed hands! It was GPS parents and our frustration over the continuous cuts to our children’s education that made the power shift this past November. These guidelines were created with an old BET. We should NOT make any decisions to cut staff without consulting the new BET. We CANNOT just allow teachers to leave our district without a fight.
6. CMS has already lost 2.4 positions. We demand that GPS examine staffing decisions equitably and, if positions must be eliminated, that they are distributed out among more than one [middle] school!
7. We call on Board of Education members to consider a visit to CMS to see firsthand the difficulties caused by last year’s 2.4 staffing eliminations and then allow Open Enrollment to determine next steps BEFORE eliminating the proposed 4 FTE. Base all decisions on the facts and data obtained from this process before eliminating positions a week before the holidays without the proper data and input from CMS building administrators and staff, as well as the CMS community.
8. Please read further and share/email your support for retaining all positions at CMS with the Board of Education: Boardofedmembers@greenwich.