Parents, teachers unhappy with combination classes at Modesto schools. Here’s what they said
There has to be a better alternative to combination classes than busing students to other schools, parents and teachers complained to the Modesto City Schools board Monday night.
Combination classes put students from two grade levels in the same classroom with one teacher. They’re among the options when a school has too few students in one or more grade levels to create a regularly sized class.
Other options include teachers accepting more students in a class than what’s outlined in their contract, Associate Superintendent Brad Goudeau said in a presentation to the trustees Monday night. They are compensated for the increased workload, but one obstacle is that classrooms may not be able to accommodate more desks. Similarly, a school may want to add a class but not have the physical space to do so.
Or students can be “overflowed,” meaning students may face a bus ride out of their neighborhood and families may end up with siblings at different schools.
A survey was sent to all families of students in transitional kindergarten through sixth grade — more than 10,000 in all. Of that number, there were 773 responses. Results showed that 64% preferred a combo class to overflow, and 35% preferred overflow, Goudeau reported.
But parents who addressed trustees after the presentation said neither option is good.
Combos are ‘lesser of two evils’
The survey should not be interpreted as parents supporting combo classes, said Lakewood Elementary parent Lauren Montavon. “They simply picked what they believe to be the lesser of two evils,” she said. “The survey did not describe to them how combo classes work. It did not explain to parents how their students would receive only 50% instruction time.”
Two fourth-graders in a fourth/fifth-grade combo class at Enslen Elementary spoke to what Montavon said about direct instruction. “The teacher is with the other grade half of the time,” one of the children said. “She has to teach the other class while we do work by ourselves, but some kids don’t do their work and play around.”
Goudeau’s presentation also included math and English/language arts test scores that showed higher performance by students in combo classes than in single-grade classes.
An Enslen parent who also is a substitute teacher in the district said the testing data bars are so close, “I’m unclear if this is even a statistically significant result.” And Trustee Jolene Daly noted that the data was based on just one round of testing from October and November.
Superintendent Sara Noguchi said the district will look at test results from all three trimesters of this school year and next. “I can see how folks might see that this possibly could be misleading because it is one trimester,” she said at the meeting, “but I can say the data I have seen out of two trimesters, the majority of the grades that were combos outperformed a single grade.”
District staff will report back to the board in September after it gathers all of its data over the summer, she said.
One-time funds offer reprieve
At a late-March board meeting, parents spoke in protest of the projected 33 combination classes across the district’s 22 elementary schools during the 2023-24 school year.
Monday night, Goudeau reported to trustees that $2.4 million in one-time funds will allow the district to reduce the number of combo classes next year. But “this is not a sustainable model for one-time dollars,” he added.
Parent Marc Etchebarne argued that giving every student a full-time teacher should not have to rely on one-time funds. “We can’t look a little closer at the budget and what we can cut ...?” he said.
“There’s room for internal maneuverability with current district positions,” he said, including dozens of credentialed teachers who are working in professional development at the district office but could be in classrooms. They could teach the kids and mentor from their own school sites, he said.
Much changed since combos were norm
How combo classes are used across the district also was questioned by families and teachers at Monday’s meeting.
Mary Morado, a second-grade teacher at Kirschen Elementary, said next year will be her 30th as an educator. She noted that when she began her career, combos were the norm in many schools, but “the cognitive and academic demands that we place on children have exponentially increased since then.” And with the toll the pandemic took on children’s socioemotional health, they need more support than ever, she argued.
She pleaded with trustees to think about where combo classes are having the most impact. “They’re at our schools with English learners with parents that may or may not have had a good educational experience. And they’re good, solid citizens and members of our community that want to help their kids, but they don’t have the skills to do so.”
Her school is on the city’s west side, has a high number of English learners and has two combo classes, she said. “Other school sites don’t have them at all. How is that being equitable?”
Trustee Adolfo Lopez agreed with her. “We hate to have combination classes,” he said, but when there is no alternative, “it has to be equitable throughout our district.”
Other trustees, including Abel Maestas and board Vice President John Ervin III, asked district staff to take another crack at a survey of families. Both asked that it ask for more qualitative data, an opportunity for parents to offer suggestions, not just answer multiple-choice questions.
Maestas, who said that as a parent he took the survey, said he’d like to see one that is an outlet for families to share their thoughts. It would be a valuable way to hear from parents beyond those who turn out for board meetings, he said.
Qualitative data goes far in gaining information especially when people are asked to pick between two choices — in this case combo classes or busing — that might both be unappealing. Maestas said.
