Rochester Hopes K-8 Plan Will Benefit Students (NY)

February 16, 2011

Finding ways to help adolescent students do better in school is a dilemma that has dogged educators for decades.

Now, city school officials hope a plan to expand elementary schools to the eighth grade will help those students succeed at an age when some research suggests they are most vulnerable to failure.

"A lot of it has to do with our interest in having better transitions for students," said Mary Doyle, the district’s chief of innovation. "We really want to keep our students longer in that nurturing environment."

The push underscores a national trend toward the K-8 model, as educators look to reverse a drop in standardized test scores once students leave the ir elementary schools. The change is becoming so prevalent that the National Middle Schools Association is considering changing its name to the Association for Middle Level Education.

"There’s always been kind of a struggle at these grade levels figuring out how to be responsive to the needs students have at the adolescent stage, but also help them succeed academically," said Matthew Rosin, a researcher with EdSource, a California-based group that studied different middle years models. "The middle grades are in part about preparing the students to undertake a college- and career-ready path in high school."

K-8 schools are nothing new to the U.S. school system, where most districts used the model well into the mid-1900s when junior high and middle schools became more common. While middle schools are still the norm in many suburban districts — including those in Monroe County — some educators say that extra transition at a time students are dealing with so many personal changes can hurt student performance. The city scrapped its middle schools several years ago, adding the traditional middle school years to the high schools.

The Rochester school board has already approved plans to start expanding nine elementary schools to a K-8 model next school year, a turnaround from the current system in which students move to high school in the seventh grade. The district has already started the expansion at several other elementary schools, and ultimately administrators hope to convert every elementary school in the district.

The idea is to provide continuity to students at an age when they are going through many physical and hormonal changes. School officials also hope that staying in a familiar environment with teachers who know them and can give them extra support will help students excel in their classes. And in some cases, the teaching strategies typically used in elementary schools are more effective with this age level than those used at the high school.

A study by the Center for Education Reform found that other school districts found success with the K-8 model. In Portland, high school freshmen who came from K-8 schools had higher GPAs than those who came from traditional middle schools. In Cleveland, sixth grade students in K-8 schools scored 18 percent higher in reading and 23 percent higher in math than those in traditional middle schools. And in Milwaukee, absenteeism and suspension rates were four and nine percentage points lower than in traditional middle schools.

To be sure, administrators acknowledge the model can pose logistical problems, namely having more students in the same building and trying to section off younger ones from older ones.

While parents have been generally supportive of the plan, some have expressed concerns about having adolescent-aged children in the same building with younger ones.

"There needs to be special attention to them at that age to prepare them for the high school environment," said Vanessa Desmore, a city parent.

And some researchers caution that educators should not treat K-8 models as a cure-all for the middle grades dilemma. An expansive study by EdSource, the California research group, showed that the configuration of grade levels didn’t make as much of a difference as the teaching practices used in the building.

But now, facing a high school system that fails to graduate more than half of its students in the typical four years, city school administrators say they need to try something different.

Elementary school principals planning for the change say they believe they may be in the best position to set students up for success in high school. They say it makes sense to keep their students an extra two years because they have already invested time into building relationships with them and their families. And by adding the middle years, which traditionally aim to prepare students for high school, some principals hope they will be able to adjust their elementary curriculum to start preparing students when they are younger.

"So often over the years I’ve seen my sixth-graders come back, or I will talk to their principals, and they’re not doing well," said Mark Mathews, principal at School 8, which is moving to the K-8 model. "For one reason or another that transition is very disruptive for them. They go to high school and (suddenly) the same kid who gets a 3 on the state exam is failing."