Sixth-graders: Better off in elementary or middle school?

The atmosphere was intense at a recent meeting of parents and Shawnee Mission school administrators. The parents had listened politely through more than a half-hour’s worth of presentations. Now it was their chance to ask questions:

Why move sixth grade to middle school? Where would the new attendance boundaries be? Are sixth-graders really ready for a big new environment with a different teacher for each class?

Will it be good for the kids?

Those are questions any school district has faced when moving sixth grade into middle school — most recently Olathe. Now Shawnee Mission, the only district in Johnson County that has sixth grade in elementary school, is considering making the change.

In exploring the move, the district is listening to parents and educators and can look to Olathe, which moved its sixth-graders to middle school just five years ago.

At the Shawnee Mission meeting, there was suspicion among some parents, anger among others. School district officials insist they are neutral on the issue, but not every parent believes it.

“I don’t feel their minds are made up. They’ll listen to us. But they are trying to promote it,” said one preschool teacher.

Change is coming, one way or another, to the Shawnee Mission school district. Enrollment is up this year and expected to increase even more in the near future. Space will have to be added, and it won’t be easy.

Maybe parents won’t be on board with such a major change. But the time is right, district officials have decided, to at least have the discussion.

If Shawnee Mission moves sixth-graders into middle schools, it won’t happen until at least 2018-19. That would directly affect about 2,000 kids who are currently in third grade. Still, many parents at recent public forums have expressed anxiety over the proposed change.

The question of where and how sixth-graders should be educated carries with it an abundance of emotional issues for parents — boundary changes, ability of younger students to handle the bigger schools, and new spending, either for more elementary schools or to renovate or build middle schools.

But those issues must be faced, whether the district moves sixth-graders or keeps them in elementary schools, district administrators say. To that end, task force members who’ve been studying the issue have been on a listening tour at the five existing middle schools. The district also has encouraged parents to share their views in a survey.

The discussions have come about just as the Shawnee Mission district finds itself in a bind. Enrollment spiked this year at 27,695 students with an increase of 231 students — the biggest increase since 1992. And Superintendent Jim Hinson warned the people attending the fall education foundation breakfast that more increases are on the way because of big new development in the works at Lenexa City Center in the west and Meadowbrook in Prairie Village in the east.

Without a change, three new elementary schools will have to be built, and elementary school boundaries will have to be substantially redrawn, according to district officials.

Moving sixth-graders would ease the pressure on elementary school buildings and boundaries. But it would also require an expansion of middle school space, with possible renovations of two former middle schools and perhaps the building of a new third one.

That idea has touched a nerve with some parents still sore about the decision more than four years ago to close and sell off Mission Valley Middle School in Prairie Village.

So far the district has been careful to separate the space and building problems from the question of changing sixth grade. District administrators, from Hinson on down through a special grade configuration task force, have always maintained that the best possible education is their goal and that the sixth-grade change is not a done deal.

Hinson said the issue is being discussed because parents and staff have repeatedly asked why Shawnee Mission schools don’t have a sixth- through eighth-grade middle school, as other Johnson County districts do.

People have been asking at least since Hinson became superintendent in 2013 and probably before, he said. “We’re willing to have the public conversation about it,” he said.

“We want to know, are we doing what is very best for kids or is there a model that could do better?” Hinson said. “I’ve worked in a number of middle school models. I don’t know that I really have a preference.”

* * *

So what really is best for kids?

The Olathe School District is convinced it is the middle school model that includes sixth-graders.

In the 2010-11 school year, Olathe went through the very change that Shawnee Mission is now considering, and it included a move of ninth-graders to high schools. Now that the new configuration has been in place a few years, it appears to be fully embraced by parents and administrators.

Rod Smith, principal at Frontier Trail Middle School, has worked with both types of middle schools and is enthusiastic about having sixth grade in middle school because students get a wider variety of class electives and social clubs to choose from.

“Just the opportunity afforded, that would be the part I love,” he said.

Putting sixth-graders into middle schools has been a trend for a couple of decades as researchers have learned more about the developmental needs specific to kids ages 10 through 14, said Erin Dugan, assistant superintendent for general administration at Olathe schools.

At this age, she said, kids begin to feel independent enough to explore new interests but still need the safety of a structured environment. They also benefit from more frequent moving around like passing from class to class, she said.

Perhaps most importantly, pre- and early teenagers need to feel socially connected with one another and the school for their learning to be most successful, she said.

“They need not only a sense of belonging, but they need a sense of independence,” Dugan said. “They’re trying to figure out who they are in this world.”

That is a big reason Olathe middle schools offer an array of activity clubs meeting at the end of some school days.

Olathe sixth-graders can participate in track and cross country, and they can also try out some electives like choir and band.

“What we want to do is help them connect within the school environment,” Dugan said. “They develop the team dynamics and social dynamics and the lessons learned that eases some of that social awkwardness. This makes for a better, more successful learner.

“For this age group, their academic, social and emotional needs are so tied together that to ignore one would be to the detriment of the others,” Dugan said.

Brain research shows that “if you’re not also addressing the social and emotional needs, it’s going to have a negative impact on academic success,” Dugan said.

Because of changes in Kansas’ standardized testing, it’s hard to quantify the academic impact on Olathe students since the change, Dugan said, because there is no direct way to compare.

But she said district surveys have shown parents are happy with the switch. And students themselves have better feelings about what in previous times were considered the awkward years.

“We have a generation of kids who loved their middle-school years,” she said. “Not just kinda — they love it. They felt safe, they felt supported, but they felt like adults.”

Sue Fruth, an Olathe parent of a high school senior, junior and eighth-grader, agreed.

“I’m a big fan,” said Fruth, who is a paraprofessional at Olathe Northwest High School. “My children say middle school is the best years of their life. Would you be able to say that?”

Psychology aside, there are other practical reasons for Olathe administrators to like the middle-school arrangement. The district is able to offer sixth-graders short classes on such things as foods, tech ed, art and choir to explore their interests, for one thing. There’s a short time for social clubs and extra help with homework at the end of the day. And more sixth-graders can take classes like pre-algebra because it’s within the school day.

* * *

The advanced math class is one advantage often cited by Hinson of Shawnee Mission, because as things are now, only students with a parent free to drive early in the morning can take those classes. Next year, however, Shawnee Mission is offering pre-algebra during the school day at elementary schools.

Although Shawnee Mission officials are adamant that the building space needs are not driving the conversation, they receive a lot of attention at the parent meetings. Whatever path the district takes on sixth grade will involve major changes at some point in the kindergarten-through-12th-grade timeline.

The task force has divided its options into four scenarios, presented at the meetings by John Bartel, principal at Crestview Elementary School.

In the first scenario, sixth-graders stay in elementary schools. But because of population increases, new ele mentary schools would have to be built, causing major boundary changes, Bartel said.

The other scenarios all have sixth grade moving to middle school. In the second option, the new sixth-graders’ space needs are accommodated only with renovations to the existing five middle schools. However, Bartel called that option the least feasible and “close to impossible” because of limited space and the expense of renovations so that the existing middle schools could handle 400 to 500 more kids.

In the third scenario, the district reopens two former junior highs — Broadmoor, on 83rd Street, and Indian Creek, near 103rd Street and Roe Avenue, to handle the influx of sixth-graders. Those schools had been repurposed into district centers for such things as technical training and culinary arts. In that option, there would be limited changes to elementary school boundaries and more significant boundary changes for middle schools, with the possibility for split feeders to the high schools, Bartel said.

However, that idea doesn’t address the growth in the western part of Shawnee Mission’s area, near Lenexa’s City Center, he said.

Scenario four calls for the renovations of Broadmoor and Indian Creek plus a new middle school to be built in the western part of the district along the Interstate 435 corridor. Elementary-school boundary changes would be limited, but there would still be attendance boundary changes in middle schools, and some middle and elementary schools could become split feeders with that option.

That option isn’t without its roadblocks, Bartel said. The district has already had difficulties finding available and affordable land in that area for an elementary school.

“In this particular area, land is not sold by the acre but by the square foot,” Bartel told parents assembled at one meeting. “So acquiring 40 acres of land would be fairly significant.”

The enrollment increases will come with costs, whichever way the district decides. Building a new elementary school costs about $18 million, and a new middle school could cost $42 million to $60 million. Those estimates don’t include land acquisition, he said.

Some parents who remember the sell-off of Mission Valley Middle School in 2011 find those cost estimates hard to swallow. Michael Grossman of Leawood said the district might have saved itself some expense if it hadn’t been so quick to sell the Prairie Village school. That building, erected in 1958, brought a sale price of $4.35 million and was to be demolished and redeveloped.

Grossman said district officials should have seen the future growth coming when they made that decision.

“We threw a lot of money down the toilet here. It’s as simple as that,” said Grossman, whose two older children would have gone to Mission Valley.

He also has a third-grader who would be among the first to experience sixth grade in middle school.

Grossman blames the former board of education members, some of whom are still in office.

“I’m probably going to the next school board meeting and call for their resignations or at least call for them to admit they made a mistake,” he said. “I think it’s pretty shameful, and I’m not afraid to call them out on it.”

* * *

Parents in the Shawnee Mission district have their list of concerns about the potential move. Near the top of the list is the question of whether sixth-graders are mature enough to handle the stresses of middle school life, juggling classes with many different teachers and mixing with older kids.

“I think the majority of sixth-graders are not ready to be in the middle-school environment with 14-year-olds,” said Jill Wineinger of Shawnee, who has two boys in elementary school.

“Keeping them safe in the walls of elementary for an extra year benefits everybody in the long run,” she said.

Another often-mentioned advantage to keeping things as they are is that sixth-graders get a chance to be leaders and mentors during their last year in elementary school. Spending the extra time getting more communication and time-management skills benefit the sixth-graders before they get the stepped-up academic pressures of middle school, said Jennifer Ecklund-Johnson of Prairie Village.

“They’re able to be a big fish in a little pond. They really thrive by doing that,” she said.

Ecklund-Johnson, the mother of a sixth-grader and a third-grader, added, “I feel like it’s not broken, so why try to fix it?”

Wineinger also worries that school administrators may be considering the change simply for space and financial reasons. That sentiment comes up again with other parents attending the meetings.

“I think the decision already has been made,” said Brandi Salvino of Overland Park.

Ecklund-Johnson agreed.

“It seems like they’ve been charged with convincing us while seeming like being neutral,” she said.

District officials say that’s not the case, though. Sara Goodburn, president of the Shawnee Mission Board of Education, said the question didn’t originate in the school board but has been out in the community, possibly because the other school districts in the county have middle schools with sixth-graders.

Reaction from parents has been “very mixed,” she said, adding that there’s no timeline for a decision and she has yet to make up her own mind on the matter.

“There’s a lot to think about,” she said.

Assistant superintendent Rick Atha, who is part of the grade configuration task force, echoed that.

“Other districts in Johnson County configure grades differently, and that begged the question from our stakeholders why we deliver prekindergarten through sixth instead of sixth through eighth,” he said.

Atha recently came from Garden City (Kan.) Public Schools, which have a seventh-eighth grade middle school, and he said he doesn’t have a personal preference.

“The result of my experience has made me even more neutral. It comes down to good teaching and relationships with the kids,” he said.

* * *

Making a smooth and happy transition to sixth- through eighth-grade middle schools depends on being transparent and open with parents and addressing their concerns, say Olathe administrators who have been through it.

A crucial aspect to that has been how the district handles the transition for the kids themselves.

Olathe schools do several things to ease the way for sixth-graders coming into middle school, said Smith of Frontier Trail. It starts with visits the spring of fifth grade to talk about enrollment, and with middle school band concerts and other chances for fifth-graders to ask questions about middle-school life, he said.

Olathe schools also have eighth-grade WEB leaders (Where Everyone Belongs) who help sixth-graders through their half-day of orientation before classes actually start, he said. And the district has some of the sixth-graders finishing their first year of middle school come back for a Q-and-A session with fifth-graders on the way in as well.

All of that helps set the tone that sixth-graders will be warmly welcomed in the new school, Smith said.

There isn’t a lot of mixing with older grades, because the classes and lockers are designed with sixth-graders closest to the principal’s office and eighth-graders farther out, he said.

Because the middle school has more specialized rooms for things like band and foods, sixth-graders get a chance to do electives that weren’t available in elementary school. They are more limited in athletics because of the rules of the Kansas State High Schools Activities Association. Sixth-graders in Olathe can do cross country and track, but have to wait to participate in other sports. As a result, there is always quite a lot of sixth-grade interest in those two sports, he said.

The transition is usually smooth, Smith said.

“Every year I’ve watched it,” he said, “and they seem to acclimate to it really, really quickly.”

Olathe school officials emphasize that keeping parents informed is a big part of the transition, but they say the response has been overwhelmingly positive so far. It helped that in the first year of the change some of the sixth-grade teachers moved along with the students, so there were familiar faces, Smith said.

“I can’t think of a negative that came out of the transition,” said Dugan of the Olathe district. “Once we made the move, it has been just utterly positive.”

Most of the concerns parents have about sixth-graders in middle school are the same as they might have for when a student enters a junior high or high school or even kindergarten, Dugan said.

“Mainly it was, are they too young? Meeting the social and emotional needs was probably the largest concern,” she said. “What won the day tended to be the increased offerings as well as an opportunity for academic accelerations,” along with the safety nets for kids who might struggle.

It’s up to the district to acknowledge and validate those concerns as it explains how they will be answered, she said.

Ten- to 14-year-olds are more alike than 5- to 10-year-olds who occupy the same elementary school building, she said. But just like in elementary school, separate hallways can ease the concerns.

A sampling of sixth-graders at Frontier Trail Middle School bears out many of the things Smith and Dugan said.

Twins Luke and Molly McBride agreed they were bored with elementary school.

“I thought about I just really wanted to go to middle school, because I’m really sick of elementary school,” said Luke. “It was really slow.”

Middle school seems to go by faster, he said.

Jessica Butler was likewise tired of the daily walking in lines at elementary school.

“It was six years of the same school. I honestly just wanted to get out and get on with it,” she said.

Like some other students, Jessica said she feared that middle school would swamp her with an overwhelming amount of homework, and she admits to stressing a little about tests. But on the other hand, “you get a different aspect from a different teacher and not just subjects but the way they teach,” she said. “It is a change of scenery and lets you get exposed to more things earlier than you would have if you stayed in” elementary school.

Going to a new, bigger school is scary, said Lindsey Mehnert.

“I was honestly scared out of my wits,” she said. “Once I got here, it was a lot easier. Within the first week I realized it was a lot more fun than I thought, more easy and less stressful.”

Lindsey and some others said talks with WEB leaders helped them feel better about the changeover. They also mentioned involvement in various school clubs. Lindsey is in theater, and Luke has tried cooking, physical education and movie-watching club. Aidan Richardson has tried jazz club as well as a group that makes things with duct tape.

All said they’ve been happy and able to make friends in middle school, despite some early fears.

“I was surprised how many nice people there were and how many friends I’ve made,” Molly said.

She said she’d been worried that it would be hard to make new friends in a big school.

Putting Shawnee Mission sixth-graders into middle schools got a thumbs up from Aidan.

“I honestly think (sixth)-graders need to explore bigger things in the world learning-wise, so I think they need to go to middle school. I think it will be a lot better for them.”

This story was originally published March 22, 2016 at 10:16 PM with the headline "Sixth-graders: Better off in elementary or middle school?."