Sunday, May 04, 2008
Kids need help when they move schools
Shanna Flowers
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The deed, as we expected, is done.
Forest Park Elementary School will close in June, and its 265 students will be dispersed to three other elementary schools this fall to make room for an overage academy.
Impassioned parents and their advocates condemned the proposal in a show of support for the school during a meeting Wednesday evening at Lucy Addison Middle School. But the next morning, school officials approved the measure. With a divided 4-3 vote, the Roanoke School Board elevated the proposal to policy.
Now, for the sake of the children, let the healing begin.
The reality is that many of these youngsters will be moving to new, unfamiliar environs. The priority now becomes making sure they ease into the daily class rhythm as welcomed and accepted members of their new school family.
In this space 10 days ago, I urged school officials to deliver the resources that the students need to flourish academically. The issue of resources cannot be stressed enough, and school administrators are on notice that the public is watching.
The plea to make the youngsters -- and their parents -- feel at home is no less urgent.
In their new schools, it is imperative that the students feel they belong, that they not be referred to as "the Forest Park kids." Their comfort will be integral to their academic achievement.
The receiving principals -- Debbie Doss at Highland Park Elementary, Carlton Bell at Hurt Park and Toni Belton of Roanoke Academy for Mathematics and Science -- assured me Friday that they already have planned events to roll out the welcome mat.
Belton's compassion spoke for the principals.
"All of our students who come here, they feel welcome here anyway," said the principal, who will receive Forest Park's fifth-graders. "We take the child as a whole child. You get much more than an academic child. You have to look at what they have with them.
"I'm going to do everything to make them comfortable and to make them feel at home," she added. "I don't think it will be as tough a transition."
Belton won't see some of the incoming students as new enrollees. She knows some of them because of joint activities between the Boys and Girls Clubs at her school and Forest Park.
Belton said she hopes to attend end-of-year ceremonies involving Forest Park's rising fifth-graders to get better acquainted with them. She plans an open house for parents and students this summer.
Doss, who will receive the kindergarten through second-graders, is including them in Highland Park's annual "Fun Day" in early June. Each year, the school's students spend the day grilling hot dogs, hamburgers and having fun at the park across the street.
The principal said she also is in the process of scheduling a meeting with Forest Park parents to introduce herself, her school and to answer all of their questions. Children attending the fun day can be ambassadors, sharing their first Highland Park experience with the parents, she said.
"They will go home and talk to parents," Doss said, adding her new charges will say, "This is a neat place."
"I think they'll love us. I really do think it's a very warm place to learn."
Bell will receive third- and fourth-graders. Hurt Park's welcome-wagon itinerary includes an open house for Forest Park staff members. Bell said the invitation will allow them to get to know his faculty and the school in case they are interested in joining his staff.
Before school ends in June, Hurt Park will schedule a visitation on a school day for new students and parents. That way, they can tour the school and observe a routine Hurt Park day, he said.
In August, the school will have a school-year kickoff picnic for students, and the a local church will distribute school supplies.
I don't know Bell, but I like his attention to a very important detail: He is drafting a letter to send to parents of incoming students inviting them to be active through the PTA.
It's a gesture that should be rewarded with parental response. Parents, I know the school board's decision disappoints you. But Thursday's vote is over. Forest Park's days are numbered.
Whatever animus has been felt over the decision can't interfere with the No. 1 mission: the education and well-being of your children, of Roanoke's children.
Let the healing begin.
