6th-Graders to Shift to Middle Schools

Shifting sixth graders in the Conejo Valley School District from being the oldest children in elementary school to being the youngest children in middle school will be debated at a Board of Education meeting tonight.

Since 1994, the district has conducted a pilot program in which sixth-grade students could either choose to stay in elementary school or attend middle school. Thus far, half the students have chosen middle schools, although only 44% are going, with 6% on waiting lists.

Fifty-six percent of the sixth-graders remain in elementary schools. As the population swells at some campuses and dwindles at others, the district has determined it can no longer maintain the status quo, and is expected to make some long-range planning decisions tonight.

The district is expected to expand the maximum sixth-grade enrollment at all four middle schools to 216 students, to accommodate students on waiting lists, and to set a 25-student per class limit at some schools, to reconfigure them as primarily K-five.

Board President Dorothy Beaubien said the changes are part of a transition in the district to a system in which all middle schools would serve grades six-eight and all elementary schools would teach students in grades K-five.

“This is kind of a beginning of a tendency to lean toward middle school for all sixth-graders. It will be a gradual thing,” Beaubien said.