CORTLAND Board approves grade location move

The district began its grade-level change this year with the elementaries.
By MIKE VAN CLEAVE
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
CORTLAND -- Beginning next school year, Lakeview High School will no longer have eighth-graders scurrying about to find their classes.
After more than a year of planning, the Lakeview Board of Education agreed Monday night to implement the second part of a grade-level change for Lakeview schools that will expand grades on the elementary level and cut the eighth grade from the high school level.
"There has always been a sentiment among parents that fifth-graders don't belong in middle school and eighth-graders don't belong in high school," Superintendent Matthew Chojnacki said.
Last year, the elementary schools were responsible for pupils in kindergarten through fourth grade, the middle school had pupils in grades five through seven, and the high school had pupils from grades eight through 12.
Chojnacki said the change next year will make the grade levels more like school districts in surrounding areas: The high school will have grades nine through 12, elementary schools will have grades kindergarten through five, and the middle school will have grades six through eight.
The change is part of a two-part plan to get "better utilization of staff and buildings," the superintendent said.
Dividing elementaries
Before this year, the school district's two elementary schools -- Bazetta Elementary and Cortland Elementary -- were both for pupils in kindergarten through fourth grade.
Part one of the plan, which began this year, designated Bazetta Elementary for all pupils in kindergarten through second grade and Cortland Elementary for pupils in grades three and four.
The plan has not been without its challenges, however.
Chojnacki and district Treasurer Milt Williams said the district had to make substantial changes to busing routes.
Dawn Olejnik, a parent of three district children, was unhappy with the busing changes because her son, who is in the fifth grade, has to walk 1,500 feet through a wooded area to get to his bus stop.
Olejnik, who lives on a dead-end road, said her two daughters, who both attend Bazetta Elementary, are picked up in front of her home every day as was her son before the change.
She said the walk down the unpopulated street is a risk to her son's health because if he fell and hurt himself no one would be around to help him.
Chojnacki and Williams said that they would address her complaint to see if it has merit.
The board will meet again Dec. 1 to vote on placing a tax levy on the March primary ballot.