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Show Parents Concerned With Classes TROPIC Several Tropic' parents met with Garfield County School Superintendent Henry Jolley to express their concerns over combined classes at Bryce Valley Elementary School. The parents, who had been part of a group pushng for a Middle school at Bryce Valley, had learned only recently that Supt. Jolley's request for the school had been denied. Parents lamented the need for classes at the third, fourth and fifth grade levels to be combined and some said they did not like the sixth grade students being placed in the high school with older students. The parents said they felt their children were suffering emotionally and academically because of the forced combining of classes brought about, according to Jolicy, by a lack of funds to hire an additional teacher. The parents said they were asking for a teacher for the fourth grade who would teach only during the morning hours, returning the children to the combined class for the afternoon hours. Such an arrangement, they estimated, would cost the school district only about $7,000 for the school year. Jolley said he felt that recently released statistics did not support the parents' claims that their children were suffering academically in combined classes. He said he tended to feel that combined classes, although somewhat more of a challenge to teachers, could nevertheless provide a good education for children. Jolley's position was that competent teachers who are well prepared can handle such arrangements with success while the parents claimed that it is the combination class that is the source of the problem, not the teachers. The group of parents was adament in Ueir demand for changes and insisted that despite the superintendent's statistics to the contrary, their children were suffering academically and emotionally from the effects of the combined classes. They asked that a teacher for each class be provided for the start of school. Jolley said he would thoroughly look into the situation and get back-to the parents with an answer the following week. |