School district to end program for 3-year-olds
Officials say there are no plans to reconfigure the grades at George Washington Elementary School
School district officials plan to end the practice of taking 3-year-olds at George Washington Elementary School but that is the only change being immediately proposed for the building’s Montessori program.
Superintendent Paul Padalino said during a Board of Education meeting last week that the change was being made because the children are too young.
“In this kind of experiment … we really aren’t equipped to be a school for 3-year-olds,” he said. “We’re not a nursery school and putting them in with students who are four and five … made it that much worse.
“Maybe working together with community partners in some way (the district) can do something,” he added, “but 3-year-olds are a real challenge for us in a public school. Even our bathrooms aren’t set to have 3-year-olds … potty trained.”
The proposal was included in a Feb. 9 presentation from the Teaching and Learning Department but it has no other recommendations except to be obligated to what “data and our teachers are telling us” while being dedicated to having students be “academically successful while protecting a Montessori approach.”
District officials said the presentation was given to about six people but has resulted in more than 125 people attaching their names to a petition contending that the information means there will be grade changes for the 2023-24 school year.
“(Kingston city school district) is not acting in good faith by presenting weak and confusing data to support the proposed grade reconfiguration, and is attempting to dismantle the Montessori program at (George Washington),” petitioners wrote.
The initiative at George Washington Elementary School was phased in with 3- to 5-year-olds
in 2008-09, 6- to 9-yearolds in 2009-10, and 10- to 12-year-olds in 2010-11. The presentation reports that there were 291 students in the program for the 202223 academic year.
In the presentation, officials provided a review of test figures, with the measured student scores showing that students who participated in the Montessori program did not perform as well on Regents tests as their peers from other elementary schools.
“GW students’ performance on standardized assessments is consistently lower than … the district average across all subjects in grades 2-10,” officials wrote.
Padalino said district officials plan to work with a consultant and visit other Montessori schools before determining future grade configurations.
“No one would do anything without speaking with the faculty, and the families,” he said. “I think there’s a belief out there that the presentation of these statistics means we’re going to swoop in and do something, and we’re not. We haven’t in the past and we won’t now.”