A slap in the face. That’s what Johnston-McQueen Elementary School parent Christina Warren called the decision the Longview ISD board of trustees made in April to send all prekindergarten and kindergarten students to East Texas Montessori Prep Academy, ending traditional kindergarten in the district.
At the time, the district said Johnston-McQueen, the only campus offering traditional kindergarten, has no room for growth.
East Texas Montessori Prep Academy features the Montessori learning program, which is defined as a system of education that seeks to develop natural interests and activities rather than use formal teaching methods for young children.
Parents used an open forum at Monday’s board meeting to express their concerns with the April 24 decision.
“My daughter was diagnosed with lymphoma two weeks into kindergarten,” Warren said. “I think of, had she been at the Montessori program, and we had to go and drive out there, it wouldn’t have been an easy feat, to go and see my daughter every time we got a call that she was nauseous or she needed her medicine. I would have had to drive 10 or 15 minutes to get to her.”
Warren said she sympathizes with Johnston-McQueen teachers who found out about the kindergarten decision on social media.
District spokesperson Elizabeth Ross said Longview ISD posts news about board decisions on the district’s website and on social media.
She said Johnston-McQueen staff found out about the decision through the postings.
Another Johnston-McQueen parent, Ashley Neale, said she is pulling her children from Longview ISD because of the decision.
“I wanted my children to go to school together,” Neale said. “Big brother was really excited to go to school with little sister. It was his school, and he was going to show her the ropes. So that choice was not only taken from me, it was taken from him.”
Neale said taking her son to Johnston-McQueen and her daughter to East Texas Montessori Prep Academy would be a nightmare.
“So we will pull out of Longview ISD, and send my children to a school district somewhere else,” Neal said. “(Somewhere) my children can attend school together, and we can do it as a family, and we can have the choices for the education that is appropriate and right for our children.”
Kim Fredrick was at the meeting to speak on behalf of special education students, she said. Her child is currently in kindergarten at Johnston-McQueen, but she is thinking about holding her back another year.
Now, she needs to look at other options.
“Montessori, it’s a great program, not going to deny that, but it’s not for everybody,” Fredrick said. “It’s not for our special-needs children who need the regimen, who need the work, who need the schedule, who need somebody who can constantly be with them.”
Fredrick said even though she knows the special education population is small, she does not think it was considered in the board’s decision.
Warren said parents want to be able to make a choice in how their children are educated.
“It is a blessing, Mr. Wilcox, that you have opened that door for so many to have that for free and thank you,” Warren said about the Montessori program. “But can you give us that choice? For our babies? For our little ones that we hold dear? Because this mothering thing and this fathering thing is hard, and if we can choose their education from the ground up, that would mean the most to us.