Kindergarten students spent last week learning a new daily routine as they started attending school.
At the same time, their teachers were getting used to new surroundings as they settled into Sweet Home’s elementary schools.
The District 55 School Board closed Pleasant Valley Kindergarten this year, moving kindergarten students to schools throughout the district. Pleasant Valley had been home to the district’s kindergarten classed except Crawfordsville’s for about a decade.
“It’s just a little different getting used to how the building operates,” Oak Heights kindergarten teacher Chris Dahlenburg said. Things were fine the first week, but they’re much different than the Pleasant Valley setting.
The children’s older siblings drop in to check on their brothers and sisters, for example, Dahlenburg said. “Pleasant Valley was still a wonderful school, and we shall miss it. It still can’t be replaced, however, everybody’s been real nice here, welcoming us and happy to have the kids.”
Kindergarten teachers, along with others in the community, opposed closing Pleasant Valley last year as the School Board made the decision in an effort to save an estimated $125,000 per year. Kindergarten students are split up into one morning and one afternoon session at Foster, Hawthorne, Oak Heights and Crawfordsville. Children in the Holley area attend kindergarten at Crawfordsville.
The kindergarten teachers are maintaining contact with each other and are planning a regular meeting time to help each other out.
“Part of the problem we had is we shared so many supplies,” Dahlenburg said. She taught at Oak Heights several years before moving to Pleasant Valley. After a decade in a kindergarten-only building, they returned with more than they took out of the elementary schools originally.
With Pleasant Valley, the kindergarten had its own budget, and resources could be shared more easily, Foster kindergarten teacher DeeDee Looney said. This year, she has a $200 budget for classroom supplies. Dealing with that will be the most difficult logistical part of moving back to the elementary schools.
The kindergarten will lose its individualized programming as a result, Looney said. That includes artists in residence for the kindergarten and pioneer living days, for example. Pleasant Valley students got to watch chicken eggs hatch each spring, but being separated will make that more difficult. The incubator and eggs will be in Looney’s class this year because she has the space available for it.
“The thing I like the most is being able to see the kids we had in past years,” Dahlenburg said. “I’ll get to watch them grow up.”
Hawthorne kindergarten teacher Julie Larson said she has had several former students drop by surprised to see her, and both teacher and students are happy to see each other again.
A benefit for families is that the kindergarten students are attending the same schools as their brothers and sisters, Dahlenburg said, so they end up riding the same bus home together, making the transportation easier on parents.
The kindergarten children do not mix with the older students much at any of the schools, but Dahlenburg expects that eventually, the kindergarten students may start taking recess with the older students.
“The move was really stressful,” Dahlenburg said. “But once we were set up, we felt great.”
“It was a big job to move,” Looney said. “Basically, we had to dismantle the school and divide everything up.”
Moving was rushed, Dahlenburg said, not as rushed as the fourth- to sixth-grade teachers had it moving into a brand new building, but rushed nonetheless.
Dahlenburg teaches in the old kindergarten room at Oak Heights. The room stands separate from the rest of the school west of the gym. The Hawthorne and Crawfordsville kindergartens meet inside the main buildings. Foster has the most space of the four with the entire building south of the gym dedicated to kindergarten.
“It’s gone very well,” Oak Heights Principal Keith Winslow said. “It’s been pretty good. We’re glad they’re here. It’s been a great transition.”
Having the kindergarten students in the building will make a smoother transition for them to the first grade next year, Winslow said. Additionally, students will get extra support, with an extra half hour per session and the opportunity to do some work at the first-grade level.
Special education teachers had to go to Pleasant Valley to work with their students, Winslow said. Logistically, the kindergarten in the elementary schools will be nicer because they can work on individual education plans with those students without having to leave the building.
The additional students means more work for the office, Winslow said. With kindergarten, many of the parents have never had children in school before, and that generates more phone calls to the school.
“These are their little one’s first time out the door,” Winslow said. Overall, “I’m really glad they’re here. They’re little characters.”
The decision to close Pleasant Valley was made while Supt. Larry Horton was still in the hiring process.
“I’ve only had one parent contact me since March,” Supt. Horton said. He received an email while still working at Oakridge. The writer asked if there was a way he could prevent the closure. He replied that he had concerns but had to trust the board and administrators that it was all that could be done.
An all-kindergarten school has advantages, Supt. Horton said. “When a fair supply of funding was available, it was a great program.”
Supt. Horton sees advantages to the new kindergarten sites as well.
“Some people are very pleased all of their kids are at one site,” Supt. Horton said. The fact that first-grade and kindergarten teachers can work together and discuss curriculum will provide academic opportunities for students.
“The kindergarteners I saw this week have had a ball,” Supt. Horton said.
“We’re just making the adjustment,” Larson said. “It has not been easy. We really grieve with the loss (of Pleasant Valley).… But we know the importance of being a team player.
“We definitely miss Pleasant Valley being separated out. For the children it was the most wonderful environment a 5-year-old child could imagine for school. It’s very difficult to duplicate that in a school with multiple grades.”
In an all-kindergarten school, all of the focus is on kindergarten, Larson said. Now, the kindergarten gets one-seventh of the focus.
For Looney, the move is yet another homecoming. She started teaching at Foster in 1977. Previously she spent time as curriculum director before going back to Foster to teach first grade. She moved to Pleasant Valley last year as head teacher to handle day-to-day operations under the direction of Foster Principal Vic Zgorzelski.
“It’s like returning to my roots,” Looney said. “To me, it’s been a delight.”
She especially enjoys the space she has available, with a large classroom, a breakfast room and a separate play area that helps avoid schedule conflicts in the gym on rainy days.
“None of us really wanted to see the school close because everything was geared to 5-year-olds,” Looney said. “It is kind of fun on the other hand, and I meet with the staff I taught with for years. I think it’s going to be okay. We’ll make it positive.
“The administration, at least mine, and the rest of the staff have been real welcoming. Vic has been real sensitive to the specific needs that kindergarteners have.”