Column: Addressing socioeconomic disparities in our elementary schools should not wait

We read Daniel Simon’s column ‘MCCSC board has provided no evidence Childs-Templeton merger has support’ with interest. We disagree with his characterization of the merger’s support. While there has been vocal opposition, other community members publicly support the merger, ourselves included.

We also disagree with the premise of his argument. Of course, broad public support is helpful when considering new policies. But policies don’t have to have broad public support to be the right thing to do. Indeed, a lot of equity legislation that is now considered crucial in our country (e.g. the Civil Rights Act) faced public backlash at the time of its consideration.

The proposed merger would help address the inequity inherent in having two elementary schools located two miles apart with dramatically different socio-economic profiles. In Templeton, 64% students qualify for free/reduced lunch; in Childs it's just 15%.

Serving a high poverty student population asks a lot of our teachers and students. Relative to Childs, Templeton classrooms have larger proportions of students with high needs and not enough resources to support them – a situation all but guaranteed by the current district maps. Supportive funding only partially offsets the challenge. There’s still only one teacher per classroom. The threat of teacher burnout is real.

Beyond classroom composition, there are other disparities. Templeton doesn’t offer the same range of curricular opportunities as higher-resourced schools. Templeton has fewer PTO funds to invest in its community. Templeton has less extracurricular programming.

To be clear, those of us who are Templeton parents love our Templeton community dearly. There’s a lot to love: Our teachers are caring and talented educators. The school prioritizes social and emotional learning alongside academic excellence. The parent community fosters a culture of care for each other. We firmly believe that any kid would be lucky to go to Templeton.

But urgent action is needed to address the disparity in socio-economic status (SES) between Templeton and Childs. It does a disservice to current students from both schools to let the status quo remain.

The evidence base on school integration focuses on test score impact. Students from low SES backgrounds tend to reach higher scores after integration. Students from high SES backgrounds tend to maintain their already high scores.

But focusing on test scores misses other benefits that could come from the merger. Interacting with peer groups different from your own is important in and of itself, with potential gains in social and emotional learning and cultural competence. This isn’t just a matter of making schools "more demographically similar," but making sure we’re providing all students with the skills and experiences they’ll need for their futures.

Redistricting has been suggested as an alternative solution to reduce disparities while maintaining the K-6 structure. While we fully support MCCSC-wide redistricting, we are concerned that given the economic segregation of our neighborhoods, redistricting alone will not create equity between these two schools.

We do share some of the merger concerns often raised in public comment. Transportation will be trickier. Students won’t get to stay in the same school building for as long. Siblings will be split between schools. But we are hopeful that these disruptions, many addressable, can be weighed against the potential benefits of the merger and the real harms that will continue if we take no action.

This is an opportunity to teach our kids what community and equity should look like. To that end, we agree with Simon: ‘"Let’s try to make our schools better for all." We believe that the Childs-Templeton merger is a step toward doing just that.

MCCSC parents Molly Rosenberg, Brian Seavey, Corey Kalbaugh, Sarah Kopper, Neil Kopper, Katie Siek, Jeremy Siek and Ben Taylor co-authored this op/ed.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: MCCSC parents pen column in support of merging Childs Templeton schools