School reconfiguration is akin to a corporate takeover or merger in the private sector.
It can mean major upheaval, for teachers as well as students.
Stockton teachers worry that their credentials will be invalidated under their district's plan to eliminate middle schools and replace them with K-8 school sites.
In California, a single-subject credential allows an instructor to teach a specific subject, such as math or science. Teachers in middle schools and high schools usually have single-subject credentials while teachers at the elementary level, where students don't switch classes, usually have multiple-subject credentials.
"There's a big scare among the single-credential people about whether they will remain 'highly qualified' under No Child Left Behind," says Stockton Teachers Association President Bonnie Boggs.
So many middle school teachers with single-subject credentials expressed fear that the district would no longer need them that the assistant superintendent for human resources told the Stockton Record, "This reconfiguration is in no way meant to get rid of teachers. There is no reason for anyone to panic."
"So far we have had several sessions with the district's teachers and administrators," says Boggs. "I keep hearing they want to start the new configuration this fall. But before it happens, it will require bargaining."
"To me, K-8 sounds good," says Boggs. "When you put a large group of middle school students together with their budding hormones — well, they can feed on each other, and it isn't always the best situation."
But reconfiguration didn't sound good to an award-winning middle school band teacher. Anticipating fallout, Arthur Coleman Jr. moved to the high school level last summer. He's concerned that the loss of music programs in the lower grades will have a major impact on the talent pool upon which he draws.
Another middle school teacher sees reconfiguration as less a way to help middle school students than a way for the district to avoid a state takeover under federal NCLB sanctions. With many of the district's school sites in various phases of Program Improvement, the district can buy time by reorganizing just as if it had declared bankruptcy. "They still get to keep their assets, but shuffle things around. They can keep control because it's a brand-new school."
Recalling her school district's reconfiguration efforts in San Lorenzo, E'Monii Bailes can attest, "It was not smooth at all." A member of the San Lorenzo Education Association, she says, "There were a lot of kinks" involved when the district decided to eliminate middle schools and then to revive them.
"For me personally, it happened a little too fast."