Meadow Lane absorbs 32, but Edgewood remains open for all but new pre-K

After months of contentious debate, it appears that both Edgewood Community Developmental School and Meadow Lane Elementary will serve pre-K through fourth-graders who, not long ago, thought the latter might be their only choice.

Mixed responses — and in 18 cases, no response — from parents resulted in the Wayne County School Board voting during a special meeting to mandate, at least for now, that children of families that did not indicate a preference will begin their year at Edgewood.

Here’s how the numbers break down:

The 59 middle and high school students who attended Edgewood last year will remain on the Peachtree Street campus this fall.

For pre-K through fourth grade, WCPS Exceptional Children Program manager Sonja Emerson said that of the families that made a decision, 32 chose Meadow Lane, eight want to keep their children at Edgewood and one remains undecided.

Their requests, thanks to a previous action taken by the board, will be honored.

But it was the families that WCPS has not been able to reach — some phone numbers and home addresses are invalid; others have not returned calls and letters — that presented a problem for the district and, by extension, the board.

In short, because WCPS did not know how many of those pre-K through fourth-grade students would be attending Meadow Lane and how many would remain at Edgewood, transportation, staffing and other critical issues couldn’t be dealt with.

Emerson said that based on the current numbers, only two pre-K students — not including those whose families have not yet been reached — would be attending Edgewood this fall. State law, however, would require one teacher and two assistants for that class. But because the board voted to give parents of pre-K through fourth grade a choice, that staffing concern, and others that could arise in the coming weeks, will have to be absorbed.

Superintendent Michael Dunsmore recommended that the board vote to place students from those unreachable families at Meadow Lane. But when board members questioned when they would be notified of the switch, and Dunsmore responded “when we send the bus to pick them up, that’s when,” Edgewood advocates in the crowd laughed, mumbled and threw their hands up.

Moments later, board member Jennifer Strickland made a motion that the opposite take place — that the children of families who have not notified WCPS remain at Edgewood until they have an IEP meeting, during which they could decide between the two campuses. Her motion passed.

The future of Edgewood has been a topic of conversation for many months, with every option discussed from closing the school to allowing all students beyond fourth grade to remain at the Peachtree Street facility.

At the board’s June 25 meeting, Dunsmore backed off a proposal to require pre-K through fourth-grade students to attend Meadow Lane, recommending, instead, that only new pre-K students be mandated to leave Edgewood.

Edgewood advocate Rachel Radford argued earlier this month that based on her knowledge of discussions between district officials and parents, many of those who chose to send their children to Meadow Lane this fall were misled — that they were promised certain teachers would be transferred to Meadow Lane to serve their children. The district, however, acknowledged July 15 that no staffing decisions could be made until the exact number of Edgewood and Meadow Lane pre-K through fourth-grade students was known.

“I feel like that’s why many parents said ‘yes,’ because they were promised their teacher would be there, when in actuality, there’s no way they know. The Board of Education just said they didn’t know,” Radford said then.

Whether or not those promises were made remains unclear. However, the district now has a maximum-number-of-students scenario of how many children per grade level will be served on each campus, making staffing decisions possible.

Emerson did tell the board July 15 that she assured parents that students who transfer to Meadow Lane would still ride “Edgewood buses,” that there are seven classrooms available for Edgewood students on the Meadow Lane campus and that an additional classroom would be used for “all of our physical therapy equipment and our specialized equipment.”

She also noted that Meadow Lane would not offer a wing dedicated solely to Edgewood students — that five kindergarten classrooms would be located on the same hall.

For more on this story, including details about just how prepared Meadow Lane is for the 32 Edgewood students it will soon be serving, follow NewOldNorth.com