Lansingburgh parents and students are upset over the school district's decision to reconfigure their elementary schools.
Currently both schools are kindergarten through fifth grade. However, starting in September Turnpike Elementary will be pre kindergarten through second grade, while Rensselaer Park will be third, fourth and fifth grade.
This means that many students will have to go to different schools, meaning they may have to take the bus rather than walk. While in some families siblings will be split up.
Parents voiced their concerns over this during a community forum Monday night.
"My son is worried, terrified about going to another school," said one parent.
"How are you going to support the kids and parents during such a drastic change," said Janelle Manzer, who has a third grader at Turnpike.
"We're not saying we're against this we're against how fast it's happening," said Liz Adamek.
"My third grader is extremely worried about moving schools three more times in his future," said another concerned mom.
The district said keeping the grades together maximizes their resources and gives students the best opportunity to improve their academic performance.
"We want to work with you as a team with all of you to make sure this is a success," said Superintendent Cynthia DeDominick.
"You feel that this is going to work, you believe that this is going to work, but I haven't heard any facts that this is," said parent Connie Dyer.
The district did point to a list of schools similar in size to Lansingburgh who have seen success with similar grade configurations.
"I have kids in the district, this has to work, because my kids are affected and I recognize that you're kids are affected," said School Board President Jason Shover.
Many parents also accused the school district of hurrying this decision and not keeping them in the loop.
"You did a very poor job of giving us information so that we could be informed so that we could be involved in this," said Adamek.
"You made promises at the November forum that weren't kept how are we supposed to trust you now to keep your promises," said Janelle Manzer.
"There's no doubt that the way we wanted to get going with this is probably not the most ideal way we could have done it," said Shover.
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