Hillcrest Enrollment Planning

Committee Update

April 6, 2007

Dear Members of the Hillcrest Community,

The enrollment planning committee met on Wednesday night for over 3 hours. During that meeting, it became clear that OUSD is in a position where it needs to make a decision on enrollment for 2007-2008 very quickly. For example, there are some 800 appeals pending, and the decision as to how many of the Hillcrest appeals are granted affects the spots that are currently being held for children whose parents filed these appeals and those other parents who have requested that their children be assigned to Chabot or Kaiser. OUSD understandably needs to respond to all of these people as they make decisions for their children in the coming weeks. Given this challenge, the members of the committee worked very hard to develop a short term solution that would not compromise the options for addressing enrollment for future years. The result of their negotiation is posted on this page. In addition, the results of that initial negotiation were considered by PTA members at the Board meeting on Thursday, April 5, and some revisions were made to the memorandum which reflect the same basic plan with a different emphasis. Please read both of these documents (see box at right) in the context that they present only a first step in a much longer enrollment planning process.

People may ask, "How can we logistically fit all of these new kindergarten students into our school? How could these students be admitted with no plan to accommodate them and ensure educational quality?" The committee would not have made this recommendation had it not been presented with options that showed the influx of students could be accommodated this year while ensuring high quality education. At the start of the meeting, Beverly Rothenberg presented the committee with some possible options for accommodating all of the kindergarten children that may enroll in the framework of the existing physical structure. For example, one option is to have 3 kindergarten classes, 2 of which would be half day kindergarten classes and one would be full day. Under this option, one kindergarten classroom can be used for two classes. Anyone who had a kindergartner here before this past year knows that this is a workable approach and that the quality of education in this scenario was excellent. There are also other scenarios that could be workable. For example, there could be 2 full day kindergarten classes with an aide in each class and if enrollment is high enough that there are more children than would be appropriate to accommodate in the 2 classes, a K/1 split class could be created.

While nothing is set in stone, the most important thing to understand is that at least two ways that the entire K community could be accommodated at Hillcrest next year have already been postulated, and there are probably more. The ultimate structure that is used will depend on a few factors -- the most important being the number of children that actually enroll for kindergarten. As Ms. Rothenberg repeatedly reminds us, one child can affect the proper balance of classrooms. We have to remember that people move, their lives change for other reasons, their priorities change and all of this feeds into how many students actually attend our school in the Fall of 2007. These changes occur right up until the day that school starts.

The final plan will also be developed, adjusted and adapted based on the input of Hillcrest's talented teaching staff. The teachers are an integral part of the class planning process and there has not been an opportunity yet to canvas them for their ideas on successfully managing the number of children that will ultimately accept a Hillcrest assignment. For those planning childcare for a potential half day kindergarten, we anticipate that a decision on half day kindergarten will be made during the summer and it will be communicated to the parents of incoming kindergarten children.

Finally, please remember that while OUSD is not obligated to accept the plans in these documents, the representatives from OUSD who attended the planning committee meeting on Wednesday seemed quite committed to making this situation workable for all of the students at our school. The documents also reflect the reality that OUSD will face difficult decisions in the next school year and that these need to be addressed earlier rather than later. They also reflect a commitment to the middle school. OUSD heard loud and clear how strongly this community believes in the K-8 structure and the success that structure has provided for so many students since its inception. While no solution to the challenges that we face is "perfect," the fact that we are engaging the issues now, rather than next March when there will be a new crop of kindergartners, is something that we hope this community will support. The communication with prospective incoming students will clearly be improved.