The Echo

Delmar to move 5th-graders


By Calum McKinney • Gannett/The (Salisbury, Md.) Daily Times • March 17, 2010

DELMAR, Md. -- The Delmar Board of Education has approved a three- year agreement for the transfer of fifth-graders from Delmar Elementary to Delmar Middle and High School, across the state line in Delaware.

The unanimous decision came at Tuesday night's board meeting after an hourlong session that included input from education officials and concerned parents. The transfer will create more space at what officials called the most overcrowded elementary school in the area.

"I was prepared to fight tooth and nail not to have my kids sent to Salisbury," said Tom Luffman, a Delmar Elementary parent and member of the redistricting committee. "I realize that this really is the best decision given the circumstance."

But many others were still concerned. As screams from a rehearsal of the play "Into the Woods" echoed in the background, many parents voiced their worries over the mixing of their fifth-graders with high school students.

"Keep being nervous. It's OK. Its normal," Delmar Middle School Principal Becky Neubert said. "This is part of your job as parents."

Delmar Superintendent David Ring Jr. went on to assure parents that the fifth- graders would not be mixing with the high-schoolers in the building. At lunchtime, fifth-graders will only share the cafeteria with sixth-graders. The only time interaction between fifth-graders and high-schoolers will occur is on the bus, officials said. Even then, the bus drivers will work to keep them in separate sections.

There are many eyes and many windows in the hallway between the middle and high school, Delmar teacher and parent Christy Parson said. "And our principal is like a hawk; if a high-schooler is in the middle school building, she knows about it right away. I can attest to that."

Board members said that such concerns were a large part of the decision-making process. And many members of the community, including a former Delmar mayor, came out to voice their support of the transfer they said would keep "Delmar kids, Delmar kids."

"I don't know of very many bullies at this school," said a Delmar High student representative. "I don't think the parents or kids have anything to be worried about. This might sound corny, but it really is like a family here."

Beyond the concern of parents, officials said that securing state cooperation was also a big consideration.

"We wondered, would the state of Delaware bite on this," Ring said, referring to the needed approval of state education officials for the transfer. "But early last week we got information that the Delaware Joint Finance Committee would give monies for the transfer. And at 4 p.m. (Tuesday), we got a fax with the signatures we needed for this to go ahead."

"There are a lot of issues to study in a question like this," Wicomico Schools Superintendent John Frederickson said. "It's a long way to Dover and a long way to Annapolis to talk to the state officials, but these folks have their finger in the pie financially."

Board members also said, though children come first, efforts were taken to keep teachers from losing their jobs due to the transfer, and that after the vote, the affected Delmar elementary teachers would be invited to apply in Delaware.

The question of what would be done with the extra Delmar Elementary portables, or "educational cottages" as one teacher jokingly called them, was also addressed. According to Ring, they will be utilized by faculty that had long been needing the extra space.

"Where do we go from here?" Ring said. "Its a temporary fix to be honest with you. We know that we need to think ahead. Perhaps 10 years from now we will be looking at a new school."