- May 1, 2024
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Flagler County’s schools are at or nearing capacity. District staff expect the county’s elementary schools to exceed capacity in 2022 and its high schools to do so in 2023, while only the district’s two middle schools will stay below capacity through 2025.
The district could shift sixth grade from elementary school to middle school, but that would just make the middle schools go over capacity sooner than the elementary schools, a district staff member explained at a Feb. 23 School Board workshop.
But board member Colleen Conklin pointed out another option: Converting schools to K-8.
Many of the district’s schools, she noted, had actually been built for K-8 instruction: Rymfire Elementary and Indian Trails Middle School were constructed as K-8 schools, while Wadsworth Elementary and Buddy Taylor Middle School, though separate schools, share a campus.
“If we look at a K-8 capacity, you’re looking at being able to maintain, basically, almost to 2025 without having to reach over-capacity,” Conklin said at the workshop. “... Originally, that was the intention — as we rolled sixth grade up [into elementary schools], the intention was to become K-8.”
Sticking with a K-6 model or shifting to a K-5 model would mean adding portable classrooms or building a new middle school or elementary school, Conklin noted.
A switch to K-8, combined with a redistricting that takes into account population distribution shifts that have occurred since the district lines were drawn years ago, could spare the district that expense, Conklin said.
Then there are the apparent academic benefits: When the district switched sixth graders from middle school to elementary school, Conklin said, the district saw what the research predicts — increases in the sixth-graders’ math and reading scores.
“You can’t deny the reality of what the research says in regard to the benefits in the academics,” Conklin said, “and I’m convinced this is why St. Johns continues to eat our lunch each year with their student achievement. ... They have a larger number of K-8 schools than we do — I mean, we don’t have any any more.”
The St. Johns County School District is consistently one of the top-ranked districts in the state.
Conklin cited several studies: A Harvard researcher, she said, found that students who shifted from elementary schools to middle schools lost ground academically during the shift — the researcher called it "the middle school plunge" — and that Florida students who entered middle school in sixth grade were 1.4 percentage points more likely to drop out of school by 10th grade.
Another study, from Columbia University, showed similar drops in student achievement during the shift from elementary school to middle school.
Another study of 40,883 eighth-graders in the Philadelphia area found that students in K-8 schools outperformed those in middle schools.
School Board member Janet McDonald noted that a shift to K-8 instruction would presumably entail the expense of retrofitting elementary schools for middle school requirements.
Conklin said such renovations should be weighed against the cost of building a whole new school.
"Financially and academically, if we follow the science, it seems that would makes sense to consider," Conklin said.
