Cumberland Times-News
My name is Kaitlin Shaffer. I went to Dennett Road Elementary School for five years: first through fifth grade. I am very distressed to even think about Dennett Road closing.
If Dennett Road closes, over 320 children will be taken out of a learning environment they are used to being in. Plus, they will be taken away from their friends, because the students of Dennett Road School would be split between three different schools.
The third graders would suffer the most, though. They would be expected to attend Dennett Road in third grade, a different elementary school in fourth grade, and possibly the Middle School in fifth grade!
Three schools in three years will not allow these children to make the connections with fellow students and teachers that they need to have a successful learning environment.
Now, onto the fifth grade situation. I have been informed that the Board of Education is thinking of putting fifth grade at the middle school in the tiny pods in between classrooms.
Those pods are five-sided and can fit 15 people in them at the max. There simply isn’t enough room or lockers for those students in addition to the sixth, seventh and eighth graders that are already there.
I also have heard that the second choice is to take the fifth graders and distribute them among Crellin, Yough Glades, and Broadford schools and close the schools the students came from. If this is done, the class sizes would be huge, which I know from experience isn’t good either.
I am in sixth grade honors classes at the middle school. My teacher’s job is made more difficult due to a very large class size of 29 students.
We have to learn lessons very fast so we can complete our state curriculum, and if there is something you don’t understand and want some help you are faced with a choice, go up to the teacher and wait for a long time because there are so many other kids in line.
Or, try to figure it out by yourself, which doesn’t always go so well. There is the option to go for tutoring in the mornings, but when there is homeroom, you sit in the back with about 20 people in the classroom.
If fifth grade is placed at the other elementary schools in Oakland, their classes will be much like mine.
In my fifth grade year, I had 20 students in my class and it was a lot easier to get help and learn because my teacher, Ms. Simms, didn’t have to divide her time between nine extra students.
I had a wonderful connection with her, because she simply had more time to get to know me.
So, if Dennett Road closes, those kids are deprived of that. And if the school closes, it doesn’t just affect fifth grade, it affects the entire community! Some excellent teachers will lose their jobs, everyone is forced to move somewhere else, and all the schools will be overcrowded. So it just causes problems for everyone.
I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to read my letter. I hope that the Garrett County Commissioners and the Garrett County Board of Education will truly consider my thoughts, as I am just one of hundreds of students who feel this way.
Kaitlin R. Shaffer
Oakland
