Citing a lack of leadership in the aftermath of COVID-19, and amid challenges posed by a rising student body whose primary language is not English, a growing number of parents at Edgartown School are expressing frustration, with some electing to transfer their children to other schools.
Advocates say that these parents worry that students requiring additional needs — such as learning English — are draining resources, leaving some higher-achieving students feeling as if they are not being challenged.
The issues came to a head during an Edgartown School committee meeting last week, following 22 letters sent to the school committee and administration outlining parents’ concerns.
School administrators have said that the school could do better, and say that they have implemented some programs that can effectively teach all students. Superintendent Richie Smith, on Thursday, acknowledged that demographics on-Island have shifted significantly, and that schools are sometimes challenged to keep up.
The school population in Edgartown dropped by 20 students since last year, to a current total of 379. But statistics regarding school choice — in which students leave for other public schools — may be more telling. Over the past several years, Edgartown students leave for other schools at a significantly higher rate than students from other towns transfer into Edgartown.
According to statistics shared by the administration, in the 2014–15 school year, a net of 20 students were lost to other public school districts through school choice. In each of the two school years from 2017–19, 35 were sent, and seven received. This school year, 17 were sent, and two came into the district through school choice — the least balanced ratio of any year shown.
Meanwhile, over the past several years, the population of non-English-speaking students has doubled, a reality which reflects the vibrancy of a growing Brazilian community and the challenges of an Island that is witnessing a shifting demographic in its year-round population.
The state Department of Education reports that nearly 40 percent of the district’s students have a first language other than English. Nearly 20 percent of the students, classified as English language learner (ELL) students, are at different stages of learning English. Ten years ago, in 2014, just 13 percent of the school population had a first language other than English, and just 10 percent were classified as English language learners.
On average, across Massachusetts, 26 percent of the student population has English as their second language, and just over 13 percent are EL learners.
The high population of English learners was a concern among the dozens of anonymous complaints filed with the school committee, which were obtained by The Times.
The complaints cited a lack of support or proactive communication from school leadership, with multiple letters criticizing Principal Shelley Einbender and Assistant Principal MaryAnn Bartlett.
Other common complaints were that teachers were stretched thin in classes of more than 20 students — many of whom required attention as English learners — and that the school failed to challenge the students who excelled.
Included were eight stories and 14 more complaints from Edgartown School parents, with roughly a third of the accounts stating that the parents had pulled their students.
None of the parents’ letters identified their children as English learners, or students who speak a language other than English at home.
Reached earlier this week, Edgartown PTA president Brooke Leahy told The Times that there’s been concern that the school has not gotten back on track since the fallout from COVID. And she and other parents have talked with the school’s administration, but changes have not been made.
Leahy says that overextending resources for English speakers is not the only concern for parents. She said that there are a wide variety of issues that result in parents taking their students out.
“A lot of attention gets paid to all of those diverse groups,” Leahy said. “There are only so many teachers in the building, and so many hours. We need to service all of the kids, and there is a big population of ELL kids and a large special-needs population. And that is beautiful for our diverse community, but there has to be a give somewhere.”
“Meeting the needs of all students means all students. And that includes high-achieving students as well,” Leahy added.
“We’ve hit critical mass, and can’t just talk it away anymore. We need to make a switch,” Leahy said. “A lot of this has been talked about extensively in years past. It is becoming more obvious. People are looking for solutions.”
The frustrations were voiced at a school committee meeting on Thursday last week, where dozens of parents packed the Edgartown library and more than 100 attended on Zoom.
Several parents echoed Leahy’s comments, speaking to the importance of addressing every student’s needs during class time — including the students learning English — but balancing that with challenging students who are excelling.
“What is happening right now in the school is just a snowball effect of — post-COVID — but anxiety and lack of communication,” former school committee member Kelly McCracken said during the public comment segment of the school committee meeting. “And if you do not have happy teachers and happy kids, you will not have happy parents.”
It wasn’t just parents at Thursday’s meeting. A teacher at Thursday’s meeting saw it differently. Edgartown School kindergarten teacher Debbie Grant highlighted the value of diversity in classrooms. “It’s not an ‘us versus them,’” she said.
“I had heard a little bit of, ‘Oh, ELL kids take away from the education of my child,’” Grant said. “I feel so strongly about that as an educator. What I see in a classroom is a diverse class, where kids are learning from each other in different ways.”
Administrators also highlighted that there are teaching methods implemented that have proven successful for educating a diverse student body. Superintendent Smith, acknowledging parents’ concerns, said one such method is co-teaching, in which classes receive two teachers in order to support all students.
Smith also highlighted what he called the Think:Kids program, in which teachers learn collaborative problem-solving models to assist students with behavioral issues.
Still, the news that the district was losing students came as a surprise to some committee members and the school’s principal.
“It was a shock to me to learn over the course of my two and a half years here that we have an imbalance of students leaving, as opposed to coming into the district, with the Island-wide school choice,” committee chair Lou Paciello said at the meeting.
“I’m not placing any blame,” Paciello continued. “But I also am not happy with that. So even if it was a historic problem, I still see it as a problem, and that we need to address and come up with solutions to that problem … We want to be the school everybody comes to, right?”
Principal Einbinder, who has been in the position for five years, said that she reviewed numbers from the past 10 years after Paciello suggested doing so. “We’d never done that before, as far as I know,” Einbender said. “And it was eye-opening for me.”
At their next meeting, committee members plan to discuss a vote to implement exit interviews for parents who choose to leave the school. Superintendent Smith also endorsed offering site-specific surveys or exit interviews for school choice users.
Tim Klein, a parent of a former Edgartown School student, suggested instituting a survey system to gather parents’ feedback.
“It can be anonymous, in whatever format you like, and you can take it or leave it. But you guys are delivering a product, right? And if we’re not in touch with the consumers of the product, that’s problematic,” Klein said.
Smith said the district sent all parents anonymous Education Department School Climate Surveys (EDSCLS) last spring, but that response rates were low.
The superintendent added that the district could better focus on data illustrating student feelings of safety and acceptance.
“I have a very strong value in creating that culture,” Smith told parents. “And the first step is putting the instruments out there, and having people familiarize yourself.”
Smith also appeared at the Edgartown School on Feb. 5, and 7 to hear more input from concerned parents.
