The Education Blog

Because of the cuts in the State Budget, the Stamford School District board plans to close the K-5 Toquam Magnet School and to send the school’s 500 students to the yet-to-be-built Environmental Magnet School. The proposal to close the K-5 Magnet school and to replace its students is waiting for a vote this Wednesday.

Closing the K-5 Magnet School has saddened parents and Stamford community members, since the school has performed well in the Connecticut Mastery Test and has strong parents’ support.

According to Aggregation, the Environmental Magnet School is a new interdistrict K-8 facility.

In spite of its successes, the Toquam Magnet School will be closed in the fall, its students probably headed for a new interdistrict K-8 facility that will open soon.

The New York Times reports that the K-5 Magnet School originally used the curriculum which was devised by the Bank Street College of Education in New York, but now because of this change, the school officials have also to decide to which of the schools’ curriculums to stick to.

How the transition from Toquam to the Environmental Magnet School will shake out is the next matter to be resolved. The school’s curriculum was devised by the Bank Street College of Education in New York, and parents were concerned about whether the curriculum at the new school would include Bank Street, or be a combination of the two.

The paper also quotes superintendent Dr. Joshua P. Starr, expressing his readiness to work with parents in order to keep all students together even after they move to the new school.

“No one wants to be in the position of having to close a school,” Dr. Starr said to the parents. “Moving them is a good idea to maintain continuity.”

Photo: © soylentgreen23

No related posts.