This week, amidst the many other initiatives, urgencies, and responsibilities that I manage, I began thinking about how to decide which current classroom names go with each physical and grade/level classroom next year. Currently our two K/1 classrooms are called Blackberry and Laurel, and our two 2/3 classrooms are called Sweet Briar and Temescal. Four distinct possibilities arose as I thought about making the transition to the K, 1/2, 3 classroom model.
Option 1: K/1 become K and 3, and 2/3s become 1/2s
K = Blackberry
½ = Sweet Briar and Temescal
3 = Laurel
In this model, all current K/1 and 2nd grades students will be in a classroom with a different name from this year. This option eliminates the possibility that some students have prior classroom names continue while others don’t - which may or may not be a benefit, depending on the experience and needs of specific children - and it creates a dimension of consistent experience for everyone. Having new names for all classrooms might also reinforce the conceptual differences between the prior grade structure (our current K/1 and 2/3 model) and the structure we'll have next fall.
Option 2: "Max-Mix" of K/1 and 2/3 becoming 1/2
K= Blackberry*
½ = Sweet Briar** and Laurel*
3 = Temescal**
In this version, one current K/1 becomes the new K while the other becomes a 1/2, and one current 2/3 becomes a 1/2 while the other becomes the 3rd grade. This would create name continuity for some current students: those who go into the new 1/2 with the name of their current K/1, and those who go into the new 3rd with the name of their current 2/3. The problems I see are that a) the other K/1 and 2nd grade students would be shifting into newly named classes, thus creating divergent experiences for students rather than parallel and consistent, b) most teaching teams are likely to change (though of course it's impossible to say since the process of determining teaching assignments is just beginning) which can lead to confusion for teachers and students in a class where a teacher continues in the room of the same name when the program is explicitly meant to shift, and c) the faculty has agreed that we want to deliberately examine and re-place K/1 students into the 1/2 classes as part of our placement process at the end of the year, and this introduces a hard-to-predict variable.
Option 3: K/1 become 1/2, and 2/3 become K and 3
K= Sweet Briar
½ = Blackberry and Laurel
3 = Temescal
This creates name continuity for any current K/1 student who is placed into the 1/2 classroom that has the name of his/her current K/1. It also provides name continuity for half of the current 2nd grade students, who would continue on in a classroom with the same name. The big question to me here is, does shifting the current K/1 names to become 1/2 names work FOR or AGAINST our goal of creating more developmentally-targeted classrooms? Will the children who continue on have a dissonant experience as they learn how the expectations, routines, structures and practices of the classrooms are both new and familiar, or will having the same name - again, at this point without having any idea who the teachers will be - make it easier for them to make this transition?
Option 4: The names stay with the physical room, regardless of the class/grades within it.
Taking this approach would mean taking five classrooms are involved in the name changing process, rather than four. The current Strawberry Creek classroom, which is 4/5, would change into K or ½. The current Blackberry and Laurel classrooms would also become either K or 1/2. Temescal and Sweet Briar, meanwhile, would change into a 3 and ⅘. In all cases, the exact name/grade pairing would be determined by which grades we actually decide fit best into the various classroom spaces of the site - for example, where we decide to locate the Kindergarten.
A few more thoughts
There are a few more things I'm thinking about as I bring this to faculty at this Wednesday's division meeting.
First, I believe classroom names should be decided independently of, and before, teacher assignments, as this will put the needs of the students at the center of the conversation -- rather than the inevitable bias creep that will happen from adult preferences about what happens to classroom names if teachers already have their teaching assignments (and, let's recognize some teachers have emotional attachments to their classroom names).
Second, I believe classroom names should be decided before student placements are made: again, this puts the needs of the group above individuals.
Third, and finally, I believe that the emotional tenor and impact of classroom names will be most felt during the spring and fall of 2013 - after that, the naming structure becomes part of the fabric of the institution, as it is currently.
So -do you have a preference?
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