As the Taylor Independent School District moves forward with “unstacking” plans for the elementary schools next fall, parents and other community members seem to be taking the upcoming seismic shift in stride, officials said during the Feb. 20th meeting of the board of trustees.
“I would just like to say kudos to you Dr. Padavil, and the team that has looked into this,” said Trustee Anita Volek. “This unstacking process has been talked about for a long time, and previously people have shied away from it, and overall, we know that it’s going to be better for our kids to not have to make transition, transition, transition to different campuses, so my hat goes off to you for accepting the challenge and running with it, and doing it in a way that has come across very positively.”
The long-anticipated plan will transform Main Street Intermediate and Naomi Pasemann Elementary schools into first through fourth grade campuses and keep Pre-K and Kindergarten at TH Johnson Elementary School.
Currently, the district uses a “stacked” model, with students starting their education at TH Johnson from pre-kindergarten through first grade, and then moving up to Pasemann for second through fourth grade, and then on to Main Street Intermediate for fifth grade.
At the board meeting, Padavil said parents seemed open to the proposed zoning maps at a Feb. 9 town hall and through an online survey.
“Surprisingly, there was a lot of positive feedback,” said Superintendent Devin Padavil during his presentation of the first draft of the elementary attendance zones to trustees. “I say surprisingly because attendance zones are never easy for any school district.”
Though trustees approved the move in the spring of 2022 based on a facility assessment committee’s recommendation, they decided to wait until Fall of 2023 to get ready for the changes, Padavil said.
“Also in the spring of 2022, we brought to you the recommendation that we allow student to stay at their respective campuses, except for of course fifth graders graduating to Middle School, because we did not feel the facilities nor the staff were adequately prepared to make the change then, but we do feel we are there now, so in the first week of February, we presented the attendance zones to parents, Padavil said.
One important factor to both parents and to the district is preserving socioeconomic equality in the schools, Padavil said.
“The thing that really resonated with both the town hall participants and those on the survey was the equitable distribution of students based on the percentage of those who qualify for free and reduced lunch,” Padavil said. “The student populations are
very close.” Padavil shared that under the proposed changes, given the current students, Main Street Intermediate School would have 68 percent of 534 kids qualifying for free or reduced lunch, while Naomi Pasemann would have 70 percent of 973 kids.
Padavil said while this is the second version of the zoning maps, there are still other wrinkles that need to ironed out before the fall, including under what circumstances a child would be allowed to transfer and what afterschool transportation will be offered, etc.
Trustees said they were pleased with the positive response from the community so far.
“I think people really appreciate it because I think some people had no idea of the work that you all went through to even out the economically disadvantaged situation where it doesn’t just end up with one group here and the other there,” said Trustee Marilyn Tennill. “The recognition of your work was I thought a really positive thing.”
Edie Zuvanich contributed to this report.
