Sixth grade to be added to 10 TUSD elementary schools next year

Sixth grade is being added to select TUSD elementary schools next school year under a pilot program the district said is aimed at improving student performance and keeping more families from leaving.

Come school year 2024-25, families with children at Banks, Collier, Davidson, Gale, Henry, Lynn-Urquides, Soleng Tom, Steele, Vesey, and Whitmore will have the choice to keep their student in elementary school for sixth grade or proceed to sixth grade in middle school, under the pilot program approved unanimously by the governing board Tuesday night.

Tucson Unified School District started studying the concept of offering sixth grade in elementary school in 2019. Since then, it has surveyed parents and studied the financial and enrollment implications.

A study conducted by TUSD indicated the majority of parents supported the pilot. In it, 53% of parents surveyed supported having a sixth grade option in elementary school. Forty-six percent of parents surveyed indicated they would prefer keeping sixth grade within a middle school setting.

In recent years, the district has lost hundreds of students during the transition from elementary to middle school, said Bryant Nodine, TUSD’s operations manager. On average, he said, that number hovers around 400 students a year.

“That means if we lose them in one grade, we lose them in three grades. So that’s 1,200 students right there,” he said.

Another concern raised is that some TUSD middle schools are overcrowded, he said.

“The research indicates that students do better in smaller environments,” Nodine said. “(Kindergarten through eighth grade) schools in particular was one of the things that the research focused on.”

Year one of the pilot is estimated to cost the district $1.3 million. That includes staffing, technology, portables and assuming 42 TUSD students would stay in the district and would have otherwise enrolled elsewhere.

Some speakers at the board meeting expressed concern about the pilot.

John Davidson, a teacher at Gridley Middle School, who also a parent to students and both Gridley and Gale Elementary School, said middle school teachers know what they are doing when it comes to helping sixth graders transition from elementary school.

“The Gridley Middle School sixth grade team has its own expertise in helping students transition from elementary to middle school,” he said. “We understand the unique challenges and anxieties that come with this crucial phase in a student’s academic journey.”

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He also said TUSD failed to consult with middle school teachers about moving forward with the pilot program.

In an email to the Arizona Daily Star, Nodine said, “This is likely to affect, at most, from 0 to 4 existing teachers. No teachers will lose their jobs. In fact we will be hiring additional teachers to support our objective of smaller school communities.”

Phillip Switzer and Andrew Nickles, two longtime music teachers who split their teaching time between Gridley and several elementary schools, said in a joint statement that there is a perception among parents that middle schools are less safe, and that is the reason why the district is losing students in the transition from elementary to middle school.”

They urged the district to offer more support to make middle schools more conducive to learning by improving discipline practices.

“There needs to be more staff and support to be able to address behavior problems and assign consequences,” the joint statement said. “When meaningful consequences are followed through consistently students will change their behavior in order to avoid consequences.”

They also said they worried about losing staff positions at middle schools like Gridley because that could result in fewer class options and scheduling constraints. “This will continue to make the middle schools less desirable to attend, further adding to the problem,” they told the board. The district started studying the concept of offering sixth grade in elementary school in 2019.

Board member Sadie Shaw asked whether the option of shifting one or more middle schools to junior high schools would be on the table in the future. She clarified that the decision would have to be based on the pilot’s level of success.

“That’s a bigger conversation,” Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo responded, adding that there would be a lot of statutory adjustments and additional public input needed if forming a junior high was to be considered.

Nodine said the pilot program discussed Tuesday would continue as long as there was success. “Enrollment will be a first indicator,” Nodine said in the email when asked about how success will be measured. “In the long run test scores, discipline assessments and satisfaction surveys.”

Tuesday evening, Nodine told the board:

“If we have parents that are interested in staying that sixth grade for a long period of time, then we would just continue that program. I can see the only way we would reverse it is if we just didn’t have parental choice to support it.”