Scott Williams, swilliams@wolfrivermedia.com
A new classroom assignment process for elementary school students will be implemented without Shawano School Board consideration, the district superintendent said.
Superintendent Gary Cumberland said the new process prohibiting parents from requesting specific teachers will begin with the 2016-17 school year.
Cumberland said he will not seek School Board approval, because he is satisfied that the change was approved by the board’s executive committee Jan. 13.
“We were told to proceed, and we’re proceeding,” he said.
A process that previously allowed parents to request specific teachers now will permit parents only to articulate their children’s needs in the classroom for the coming school year. Administrators will hand out teacher assignments in a method designed to meet children’s needs and maintain balanced classrooms.
Officials said teacher requests previously were creating imbalanced classrooms, with some parents trying to group their kids with friends or keep the same teachers who taught older siblings.
The change affects how classroom assignments will be determined next fall for about 650 children at Hillcrest Primary School and 550 at Olga Brener Intermediate School.
Parents have voiced mixed feelings about the new procedure, with some objecting that they were losing control of their children’s education.
Dawn Walker, president of the Olga Brener parent-teacher organization, said she supports the new process, partly because the school district has many new teachers who are not well known among parents.
Walker said other parents will disagree, but she likes the idea of school administrators making classroom assignments without parents requests.
“The school knows who they hired,” she said. “They know who they have in their building.”
Officials say students will be matched with teachers based on the student’s academic record, medical needs, behavior and counseling needs, gender and other issues that include information provided by parents.
Some parents already have received the new form being used to gather parental feedback, as the process gets under way to assign students to classrooms for next fall.
At Olga Brener, parents have until March 15 to return the form.
Olga Brener Principal Terri Schultz said she has heard no concerns from parents, some of whom already have returned the forms outlining their children’s classroom needs for next year.
Schultz said the process seemed to be working well.
“We’re really excited to see the input that we’re getting,” she said.