Bessemer to revive 6th grade

By Peter Strescino
April 12, 2000

The School District 60 board of education voted Tuesday to establish a sixth-grade class at Bessemer Elementary beginning in August, a return of the sixth-grade to the elementary-school setting in District 60 for the first time since 1971.

The board also heard a proposal to scrap its Lindamood-Bell reading clinic for fourth-graders, also located at Bessemer, and place the successful reading program in 14 additional district schools, including all high schools. That will put LBLP in 21 district schools.

Bessemer staffer Rhonda Holcomb told the board, minus President Jack Rink, who was not in attendance, that the school wanted a sixth grade to help its students mature and give them a more solid academic footing before they move on to middle school.

The old school on Mesa is one of the star academic institutions in the state because of its astounding improvement over the past three years.

Principal Gary Trujillo said that in a Bessemer parent survey, more than 60 percent of the respondents said they wanted their children to remain at the school for a sixth year, rather than go on to middle school. About 20 percent said that their kids will move on, mostly to Corwin Middle School.

Between 24 and 28 students will attend the sixth grade at Bessemer, he said.

Holcomb said that a 15- to 30-percent academic drop is expected when students change buildings during their school years. She said she hopes that one more year in the elementary setting would put the kids on better footing as they enter middle school.

Bessemer will add a teacher and a half-time counselor, who will also teach a Lindamood-Bell intensive class, and get its books from middle school, Trujillo said. Board members, who voted 4-0 for the plan, said extensive information pertaining to the later academic achievement of Bessemer sixth-graders against those who go to the traditional middle schools must be gathered to see if the extension of elementary school would be beneficial to all students.

Earlier in the day, the board was told that nine elementaries out of 21 District 60 elementaries would be amenable to adding a sixth grade to their schools. But Bessemer is the only one thus far make that request formally.

Lindamood-Bell will be placed in Freed and Pitts middle schools, all five high schools and Irving, Somerlid, Columbian, Park View, Fountain, Beulah Heights and Goodnight elementary schools under a plan put forth by the division of instruction. The cost will be the same $1.3 million the reading clinic and seven district schools employing LBLP cost this year, said Flo Lenhart, the district's literacy director.

The board may vote on the proposal at a later meeting.