Crowd Packs Groton School Board Meeting Over Middle School Schedule

More than 60 people jammed the Groton Board of Education meeting Tuesday, filling every seat and spilling out into the hallway, urging the board members to abandon the new middle school schedule.

“This schedule does not work, and it’s about time we just admit it does not work and go back to last year’s schedule,” said Audrey Daigneault, media specialist at West Side Middle School. “I’m sorry, but I’ve had it.”

Superintendent Paul Kadri said he drafted the middle school schedule to allow teachers more time to collaborate without taking away instructional time. He said the plan was to give students a block of time to get remedial help or enrichment, depending on what they needed.

Under the new schedule, each student takes seven, 52-minute classes, with 30 minutes for lunch. Core subjects like math and language arts are taught in the morning. Afternoons have at least one block for extra help, enrichment or electives like world language, computer science or band. The schedule rotates every six days.

Kadri said there have been some problems and he will send a new draft to families and teachers this week. The revised schedule would go live a week from today, he said.

Teachers said the schedule changes have instead resulted in disruption and chaos for students, with children confused about where they’re supposed to go and others pulled out of some classes to attend others. Teachers of electives like band said students are with them less often because of the six day rotation.

Beth Horler, president of the Groton Education Association, said the elementary schedule was also changed, and most teachers don’t like it. She said it’s inflexible.

“We need to remember that our students are children. That they’re human beings. I think we’re losing sight of that,” she said.

She said teachers want transparency and communication, and should be involved in decisions before they are imposed.

“We need leadership to tell us that it’s going to be OK, we screwed up and we’re sorry,” she said.

Elaine Hess, the librarian specialist at Pleasant Valley Elementary, said the elementary schedule has a color-coded chart on the walls outside doors, reminding teachers what they are supposed to teach and exactly how long they’re supposed to teach it. Teachers are worried that if they go over a few minutes, they might get reprimanded, she said.

“Let us do our job,” she said. “Let me teach.”

Lea Kennedy said she doesn’t teach middle school or have a child in middle school, yet she’s been bombarded by complaints.  She said the district is six weeks into the school year and still hasn’t sorted it out.

“What if they see glitches this week? And these poor kids are going to have to change classes and drop things? That’s horrifying to me,” she said.

Larry Croxton, a teacher at the high school, said there's a curriculum that should be followed and it's the board's job to make sure it's done. “We teach children. They’re not products,” he said. “It’s not the same thing.  And if we were using a business model, you wouldn’t roll out a new product before it was properly tested.”

Susan Chase Hildebrand, said she size of Tuesday's crowd was telling.

If teachers “are worried about speaking because something might happen to them in their job, that’s really sad," she said. "I can say whatever I want because I am retired.”

The larger issue, she said, is the lack of trust this creates.

If staff continue to feel frustrated, “You will lose them,” she told the board.  “Maybe not physically, but you will lose them emotionally.”