Parents Decry Fletcher’s Mixing The School is Putting Advanced and Learning Disabled Students Together.

By MAGGIE FITZROY

Several dozen Fletcher Middle School parents expressed concerns this week about a new program that often mixes advanced students and those with learning disabilities in the same classrooms.

They also spoke out about increased reports of bullying.

About 50 parents crowded into a School Advisory Council meeting Tuesday night to vent their frustrations. Traditionally, monthly public SAC meetings attract only a handful of elected parent representatives and school administrators.

Tuesday’s meeting lasted about three hours.

The parents came to ask about a new “strategy for school success” called “heterogeneous classes,” that places students of mixed academic abilities in the same classes. In some cases, advanced students are mixed with those in the Exceptional Student Education program.

“The concern with these blended classrooms [is] are any of these students being best served,” said Michelle Tipton of Jacksonville Beach, whose eighth-grade daughter attends the school.

“They have combined ESE students, some who have learning disabilities, in with advanced students,” Tipton said. “Will the ESE students feel less capable because they are with students capable of learning at a faster pace? In turn, will the students who are advanced have to float a little bit to let the rest of the class catch up?”

The parents told Principal Laurie Flynn and other administrators and teachers that the program could hurt the academic achievement levels of students who tested in advanced ranges on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. The parents said the advanced students will not be as challenged.

The parents also came to discuss reports of an increase in behavior problems, including verbal threats and fights, at the school.

After discussing those concerns previously with many parents at the August and September SAC meetings, Flynn came prepared.

Using a PowerPoint presentation, she outlined reasons for the heterogeneous class model at Fletcher, and presented disciplinary data for the first 33 days of the school year.

She said that a “drastic drop” in learning gains in reading scores and a drop in math scores prompted the switch to mixed classes this year and that despite the school receiving an “A” score overall on last year’s FCAT, scores indicated that “overall, our learning gains have gone down.”

In past years, students with upper-level FCAT scores of 3, 4 and 5 were placed together in classrooms, while those with lower scores of 1 and 2 were grouped together.

This year, all students except those in the gifted program are mixed in classes, including students in the ESOL, or English for Speakers of Other Languages, program and those in the Exceptional Student Education program, defined by Flynn as students who may receive services for learning disabilities, emotional handicaps, speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, vision impairments, hearing impairments, health impairments or medical issues.

In response to parent requests, Flynn presented statistics showing there are 38 students in the ESOL program in the school of 1,326 students and that about two-thirds of the student body tested “advanced” last year based on FCAT scores.

Flynn said the decision to institute the heterogeneous program at Fletcher Middle was made based on success with a similar program at Kernan Middle School, and in response to Superintendent Joseph Wise’s target for all student scores districtwide to increase this year.

In 2005, 70 percent of Fletcher Middle School students made learning gains in reading; in 2006, that dropped to 63 percent and to 61 percent in 2007, she said.

In math, learning gains scores dropped from 73 percent in 2005 to 67 percent in 2007.

Flynn said while Fletcher Middle is one of only a few schools in the district to try the heterogeneous class approach, she feels it is the right one.

But some parents disagreed.

Wanda Sliwinski, who attended the meeting, said she enrolled her sixth-grader in Fletcher Middle instead of James Weldon Johnson, a magnet school for academically talented and gifted students, or La Villa, a magnet school of the arts in Jacksonville.

She said because her daughter didn’t get her schedule until the first day of school, she didn’t realize her daughter wouldn’t be in advanced classes at Fletcher, but would instead be placed in classes with students of various academic levels.

“We are really disappointed with the lack of communication as far as curriculum change,” she said.

Liza Bowcock said her son was accepted into James Weldon Johnson but chose Fletcher Middle instead, not realizing the changes in how students would be grouped.

She said she is not criticizing Fletcher, and that she likes the school, but feels she was misled last year when the family toured the campus, and those of magnet schools in Jacksonville, to compare programs.

Sliwinski said she hadn’t realized that the other Beaches middle school, Mayport Middle, is taking an almost opposite approach to classroom placements and has initiated a pre-advanced placement program for appropriate students to run in conjunction with advanced placement programs at Fletcher High School.

“No letter was sent” out about planned changes at Fletcher Middle, Sliwinski said. “No written notification of any form. Not a newsletter, no e-mails.”

It wasn’t until the kids came home and “made comments to parents” and “parents started calling other parents” that changes in class arrangements were communicated, Tipton said.

Tipton said she became alarmed when she heard her daughter and other students talking about behavior incidents in classes that they had never witnessed when they were not in blended classrooms.

Some students have witnessed arguments in classes, including one that included profanity and a death threat, Tipton said.

One told her mother she was shoved off a sidewalk, another said she was used as a shield between two big kids in a fight and another came home bruised after being pushed into a locker.

Flynn said the school is prepared to respond to increased reports of bullying and other incidences and presented statistics that indicated 297 behavioral offenses were reported in the first 33 days of school, compared to 211 in the same period last year.

At the end of this week’s SAC meeting, School Resource Officer Keith Shackelford spoke about how he was dealing with the increase, including monitoring the campus with new surveillance cameras.

After some parents requested that SAC look into creating anti- bullying programs modeled on some that have been successful in area elementary schools and in middle schools in the past, Shackelford agreed that would be a good idea.

As far as academic concerns, Flynn said every student will receive diagnostic testing three times during the year to monitor learning gains in the new heterogeneous class settings.maggie.fitzroy@jacksonville.com (904) 249-4947, ext. 6320.

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