By Amanda Estes 

Staff Writer

South Portland parents are coming out in force to say they were “blindsided” by Superintendent of Schools Suzanne Godin’s proposed “redistricting” plan for the city’s five elementary schools and two middle schools.

While some parents said they were prepared to face the process after a plan to move 26 students from Skillin Elementary School to Kaler Elementary School was postponed last year, the majority of parents who addressed administrators and the school board during a series of recent budget workshops, were visibly upset and said they had no notice of the potentially “monumental” change in their children’s lives. 

The school board expected to devote a workshop session to the proposed redistricting plan on Thursday, after the Sentry’s deadline.

A majority of parents opposed to the plan have children who currently attend Dyer Elementary School, however, all five elementary schools would be affected by the plan. 

“We’ll move,” said Deb Riddel, who moved to the city from Arizona and wants her two young children to attend Dyer. “We’re not Mainers. We’re not attached to a specific place. I look at my neighbors who are just distraught over this. It feels like the stakeholders haven’t been involved and that’s disappointing to an outsider.”

Karen Montano said if her children have to go to another school, they will “lose the ground” they have gained through additional instructional support at Dyer. She said her children will definitely need additional support if they have to transfer to another school.

“Any displacement and disruption at these young ages is going to have an impact on them that they will carry with them into their school day,” Montano said. 

Godin has said a redistricting plan is needed to balance enrollment trends, to ensure demographic equity in the city’s five elementary schools and to allow English Language Learner (ELL) students to attend their home schools. The majority of ELL students currently attend Brown Elementary School and Mahoney Middle School, where they have access to instructional support programs. 

Godin met several times with an advisory committee of parents, school board members and school administrators, who developed “guiding principles” for the process. The advisory committee also hosted a public forum last month. Godin said she considered several different scenarios before presenting a plan to the school board and the public on Feb. 28.

Under Godin’s proposed plan, all ELL students would return to their home schools with the exception of Small Elementary School students, who would remain at Brown. 

Twenty-eight Brickhill area students, who currently attend Skillin, would be transferred to Brown. The 18 students from the Anthoine Street area, who currently attend Kaler, and the six students from the Stillman Street area, who currently attend Dyer, would also move to Brown. The 11 Mitchell Road students, who currently attend Brown, would move to Small. 

Thirty-six students from the Highland Avenue area, who currently attend Dyer, would be transferred to Kaler and the 28 students from the Main Street area, who currently attend Skillin, would move to Dyer. 

Kaler, Small and Brown students, with the exception of Brickhill students, would attend Mahoney and Dyer, Skillin and Brickhill students would attend Memorial Middle School. 

Enrollment trends reflect the city’s growth areas – outer Highland Avenue and the Brickhill area – school officials say. Skillin, the district’s largest elementary school, currently has an enrollment of 407 students, while Kaler has 212 students and is consistently under capacity, Godin said. For the last two years, administrators have had to add positions at Dyer to address rising enrollments. Taking over a computer lab in order to have another classroom or moving students to portable classrooms, would create an “inequity situation,” Godin said. 

Projected enrollments with redistricting are 255 students at Brown, 255 students at Dyer, 246 students at Kaler, 395 students at Skillin and 279 students at Small. 

If the school board votes against the redistricting plan, roughly $304,000 will be added back to Godin’s proposed $42.7 million budget to pay for additional elementary and middle school teaching positions. Currently, the district has 76 elementary classroom teachers, two English Language Learner (ELL) teachers and one ELL educational technician. Under the current redistricting plan, the district would have 74 classroom teachers, four ELL teachers and one ELL educational technician.

At a workshop on Monday, school board chairman Richard Carter said Carter said students and teachers at Skillin have been putting up with an overcrowded school for too long. 

“You would be hard pressed to convince me we don’t need to redistrict the city,” Carter said. 

School board member Stacy Gato, who has a daughter who attends Skillin School, agreed a change is need.

“It has to happen,” she said. “We don’t have neighborhood schools anymore.”

Parents urged school officials to slow down the process and consider alternative plans such as combining fifth and sixth grade in one school and seventh and eighth grade in another. Although that concept was shot down when it was proposed several years ago, parents said they want to explore the idea. 

Several parents also requested fourth, sixth and seventh graders be “grandfathered” and allowed to stay at their current schools next year to avoid transitioning back and forth between several schools. 

One parent told the board on Tuesday he has consulted legal counsel and he will seek an injunction if the public is not given more of a say in developing the plan. 

Resident Joey Fassett offered several suggestions to Godin and the school board in a letter distributed at Monday’s workshop. Fasset suggests school officials plan for a fall 2009 implementation of redistricting.

“The current configuration can certainly last another year,” Fassett wrote. “To prepare for the fall 2009 implementation, I would suggest that the work on the plan begin immediately so that all kids that are moving from one school to another can be placed in the same class for the upcoming school year. This will give all the kids a year to make friends and bond with the other kids that will be joining them in the new school. I recommend this be done even if you were to keep the current proposal.”

Fasset suggested school officials “share the burden” with citizens by establishing several brainstorming groups and allowing those interested to generate ideas and contribute toward developing the best solution for the city.