Sixth graders could move to Oak-land Jr. High one year early
Sixth graders from Valley Crossing and Lake Elmo Elementary could possibly be moved to Oak-Land Jr. High for the 2016-17 school year. This move would ease the stress of the grade shift in the fall of 2017 and to ease overcrowding issues at Lake Elmo Elementary.
Parents of sixth graders at Valley Crossing are concerned about next year when South Washington County School District takes over Valley Crossing Elementary. They would like a place in the Stillwater School District for their kids to go, so they can stay within the district. Moving students from Lake Elmo Elementary will help with an overcrowding problem at the elementary school.
The purpose of this move is to allow Valley Crossing students to go through one less transition period. Oak-land Jr. High Principal Andy Fields said, “It makes sense right now to look at the Valley Crossing students that are current fifth graders that are potentially going to have a transition from District 916, which is currently the management side of Valley Crossing, to ISD 833 which is South Washington County. Instead of having those fifth grade students go through that transition and then the next year, 2017-18, come to Stillwater schools.”
Reasons for moving students from Lake Elmo Elementary would be to ease the issue of overcrowding in the school. “There is a lot of housing that is going in, or is about to go in over the next year. When we look at the projected enrollment for next year, we will be well over 800. Currently we have about 770 students, which is quite a bit over our capacity,” Lake Elmo Elementary School Principal Stephen Gorde said.
The plan for this shift is to have 5 classrooms, lockers, a brand new science lab, and a room for students with IEP’s in a separate area at Oak-land Jr. High for the future sixth grade students to have different teachers for multiple subjects. Sixth graders would also have access to the music and physical education programs along with higher level math classes for the students whose test scores support a higher level class.
Michelle Tague, mother of a sixth grader at Valley Crossing Elementary said, “I think it gives more opportunities than Valley Crossing, we have two sixth grade classes. They [The sixth graders] don’t get the opportunity to class shift like they do at Lake Elmo. It will give them more of an opportunity to start that process of the class shifting that they do when going into Jr. High.”
Future sixth graders at Oak-land would have many more course options and extracurricular options than they would at an elementary school. Mother of a sixth grader at Lake Elmo Elementary Katie Yates said, “It actually gives them more options, my daughter is excelling at math right now and she would have more course options.”
Paula Kersten, another mother of a sixth grader at Lake Elmo said, “They’re going to have three classes at Lake Elmo next year, so why not move to the Jr. High and have four classes to do the four core subjects and also have a bigger space.”
Sixth graders that would be at Oak-land would have the opportunities to take elective classes like art, choir, band, orchestra and phys-ed. They would also have the opportunity to use the fitness rooms and the pool.
Current fifth grader at Valley Crossing Elementary, Sarah Tague is excited about the possible move to Oak-Land.
“I’m already doing sixth grade stuff at Valley Crossing so I think it will be more of a challenge,” she said. She is looking forward to possibly learning algebra and meeting new people.
Shifting the future sixth graders from Valley Crossing Elementary and Lake Elmo Elementary to Oak-land Jr. High would give the Valley Crossing students a way to be included in the district without having to go through as many school changes. It would also help solve the overcrowding problem at Lake Elmo Elementary. The sixth graders would benefit from the new array of opportunities at Oak-land Jr. High and they would have many elective and extracurricular options.
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Alex Serier • Jan 6, 2016 at 10:00 pm
Awesome article well done. Very good quotes looks like a lot of work to get all of these quotes from the parents and the kids.
Jared Taylor • Jan 6, 2016 at 8:15 am
This article is very well developed, and you can tell that the great quotes came from strong questions asked to the educators, parents and children
Lauren LeBourgeois • Jan 4, 2016 at 4:37 pm
I thought this article was very well written. It was informative, and I could tell you put a lot of time, effort and research into making this story. Very well done.
Sam Begin • Nov 29, 2015 at 6:17 pm
I like how you used the headline creatively to draw people in to the story and the controversy behind it. I also liked the volume and the depth of the quotes you used. I would maybe rearrange the last paragraph though as it borders on opinion.
Elizabeth Morrissey • Nov 25, 2015 at 1:52 pm
Article pulled me in because it was relateable, i went to OLJH and Valley Crossing. This article is very fluid and well written. Quotes could be more compelling, they seemed to say similar things.Maybe go into more detail on the significance . Nice Job
Hannah Drake • Nov 25, 2015 at 10:03 am
The article starts off with a good lead. I like the pictures, very nice. Many quotes from a variety of different sources. Article is overall very informative.
Bryce Thomas • Nov 25, 2015 at 4:41 am
This Article had lots of great detail along with plenty of quotes to support the story, it feels like nothing was really left out
Cailey Boisvert • Nov 24, 2015 at 11:08 pm
The lead and nutgragh were very well written, All of your facts and quotes were well developed. It was good to have the parent and student views in the article.
Dylan Andres • Nov 24, 2015 at 9:54 pm
The lead is perfect, it really draws in the reader. I really liked how you incorporated a mother of whom is affected by the change. You were really able to find some solid facts, which allowed you to set up great fact paragraphs.
Nick Carlson • Nov 24, 2015 at 4:20 pm
I think overall this article is well developed. I’m glad I got to here from a parent of a student that could potentially be moved so we get both side of the story. You also obviously got good hard facts which allows me to not be constantly questioning what is happening and having to re-read parts of the article which I like. One piece of advice I’d like to offer is ending with a quote because the article is really about the administration and teacher’s opinions and decision on this event.
Sam DiStefano • Nov 24, 2015 at 7:54 am
This article has a lot of good details and information, it also has a good use of quotes.
Olivia Weirtz • Nov 23, 2015 at 6:26 pm
overall, this article was well developed, and included good quotes from a wide variety of people affected by this topic (parents,students). Also, this was a very informative article, and was well detailed, describing the plans with valley crossing as well as Oak-Land.
Cole Lebourgeois • Nov 23, 2015 at 5:08 pm
This article was very well developed and informative, you had a variety of quotes from various sources. The information was well explained and well said throughout the article.