Two schools, one elementary education

Paired schools, conceived in integration movement, remain part of landscape for east Montgomery County

In paired elementary schools, one school acts as a feeder school and another as a receiver, as students transition from second grade at one to third grade at the other. The ‘‘primary” school typically serves preschool or kindergarten through second-grade, while the ‘‘intermediate” school serves third- through fifth-graders.

‘‘It would be a huge transitional challenge if we didn’t all communicate,” said Deann Collins, principal at Montgomery Knolls Elementary School.

Many of the paired schools came about as a way to achieve racial diversity within the system during the 1970s, and today, paired schools can help reduce overcrowding in smaller buildings.

Over the decades, both the benefits and challenges of paired elementary schools have remained. Paired schools give teachers the opportunity to focus on early learning, often offer a more intimate environment and smaller classes, and allow parents at both schools to pool time and resources. But they also force children to be bused outside their neighborhoods and require communication among everyone in the schools’ communities.

‘‘It takes a lot of work, and a lot of planning has to go on between the two schools to make sure the transition is seamless,” Community Superintendent Heath Morrison said.

In one school,out the other

Administrators say measures are in place to make sure students are comfortable in their new surroundings come third grade.

Meredith Casper, principal at Pine Crest Elementary School, said joint school improvement plans and in-house support networks for parents provide continuity. Collins at Montgomery Knolls said the transition is more seamless when faculty share information about students moving from second to third grade.

‘‘The whole goal is that there’s no secret about what the kids need,” she said.

Peggy Salazar, principal at Oak View Elementary School, said the biggest obstacle for her school community has been the physical distance between Oak View and her paired school, New Hampshire Estates. Oak View and New Hampshire are a mile apart, which Salazar said makes it difficult for families who live in one neighborhood but send their children to another.

‘‘There are good points about [pairing], but there are the negative points, too,” she said.

The move from‘straight’ to ‘paired’

The primary motivation to pair schools goes back to a time when the integration movement was most common in Montgomery County — the 1970s.

‘‘It was a device to achieve integration in the county ... that existed most in areas where there was initially a strong black population,” said Silver Spring resident Blair Ewing, a former county councilman who served 22 years on the county school board during the movement. ‘‘It was very controversial at the time.”

Over the years, however, as the county system has become more diverse, some have called for a return to neighborhood schools.

Last year, parents from New Hampshire Estates and Oak View wrote to the county about separating the two, but were told un-pairing was not feasible.

County school board member Christopher S. Barclay (Dist. 4) of Takoma Park said that decision would not only cost money, but the county would have to look at whether the existing buildings meet the state requirements set forth for K-5 elementary schools.

Parents say the issue still comes up.

‘‘What people wanted was a neighborhood school,” said Linda Krimm, PTA president for New Hampshire Estates and Oak View. Krimm, who said she sees the advantages of pairing, has a child at each school. Her house is adjacent to Oak View.

‘‘On a certain level, I would prefer to have the kids walk to the local school together,” she said.

Morrison, the community superintendent, said East Silver Spring Elementary School is the most recent example of a paired school tapped to convert to a K-5. East Silver Spring has been in a ‘‘double pairing” with Takoma Park Elementary School, where both feed into Takoma Park’s Piney Branch Elementary School.

Barclay said that while the East Silver Spring decision was not a done deal, he did not see how Piney Branch could continue accommodating two feeder schools, as it was nearly at capacity.

A growing school-age population, not integration efforts, led to the pairing of the new Roscoe Nix Elementary School with Cresthaven in 2006. County school board member Stephen N. Abrams (Dist. 2) of Rockville said Nix was built to relieve overcrowding within the same service area, unlike many other paired schools that exist in separate boundaries.

Ewing said that while there was little support for the idea 30 years ago, he remains a strong supporter today. If schools weren’t paired years ago, Ewing said, ‘‘perhaps that degree of integration wouldn’t otherwise be there. If everybody went back to their neighborhood school, I don’t know if things would be much different, but they might.”

Parents join forces,share funding

Most paired schools have a joint PTA, which means more parents to pool from, more help with fundraising efforts and more money to use for school events.

‘‘A joint PTA has the opportunity to serve as the community bridge between the two schools,” Krimm said.

But distributing funding collected by a joint PTA can be difficult, as the schools may have different needs, said Scott Mackenzie, president of the Montgomery Knolls⁄Pine Crest PTA.

And for parents like Mackenzie with children at both schools, pairing can spread parents thin.

‘‘We try to do many programs for both schools ... but we have many parents who don’t have the ability to get to either school at night,” Mackenzie said.

Julie Queen, a parent of a fourth-grader at Strathmore Elementary School, said families who leave the community after their children finish second grade at Bel Pre face an additional challenge. But for those who stay in the system, paired schools make the next transition to middle school less traumatic, she said.

‘‘The benefit is that you do have your children in a couple different environments,” Queen said. ‘‘It gives them the opportunity to learn, adapt and get familiar with different systems.”

Paired schools

Paired elementary schools are most prominent ineastern Montgomery County:

Roscoe Nix feeds into Cresthaven

Bel Pre into Strathmore

New Hampshire Estates into Oak View

Montgomery Knolls into Pine Crest

Rosemary Hills feeds into North Chevy Chase, Chevy Chase or Bethesda elementary schools, depending on parents’ addresses.

East Silver Spring and Takoma Park elementary schools both feed into Piney Branch Elementary School, but administrators have proposed converting East Silver Spring into a K-5 school.