Parents Assail Plan to Revise School Levels : Education: Teachers and students also speak against the proposal to convert junior highs to middle schools. But the board appears prepared to make the decision next week.

Parents, teachers and students on Tuesday blasted a plan to reconfigure Arcadia schools, saying school board members had decided on the change without consulting the public.

However, several board members indicated they intend to proceed with reconfiguration, and the only question remaining is whether it will begin next fall or in 1994.

Board of Education President James A. Bryant said the board will vote Tuesday on the administration’s proposal. The reconfiguration would create elementary schools for kindergarten through fifth grade, middle schools for sixth through eighth grade and high schools for ninth through 12th grade.

Currently, sixth-graders attend elementary schools and ninth-graders attend junior high schools. The Arcadia Unified School District has one of the few remaining three-year high schools in the state.

At the public hearing this week, Supt. Terrence M. Towner said a decision must be made by Tuesday to allow time to implement site alterations. He cited a more effective academic program for middle schools, overcrowding at the elementary level and the relatively high cost of junior high schools as the reasons for change.

Bryant said, “It’s not a question of whether or not we reconfigure, but how and when we will reconfigure.”

“I am committed to going forward with this because I see a lot of positive things in reconfiguration,” board member Mary E. Dougherty told the crowd at Holly Avenue Elementary.

A majority of the board members indicated they are leaning toward changing in 1994 after a study committee, chosen by the administration, presented logistics report outlining the physical improvements needed and the academic and economic advantages and disadvantages of reconfiguration in ’93 versus ’94.

The district already has set aside $1 million needed for physical improvements such as new classrooms.

Parents told the board they felt cut out and uninformed. They said the change appeared to be for economic reasons and could hurt students academically and developmentally.

Basil Johnson, a parent, said, “It is a done deal from what I’ve heard tonight. I don’t think this is the way it should be. Parents don’t support it and have not been informed. Parents should have a good recall.”

Cathryn Warren, parent of an eighth-grader at First Avenue Junior High, complained that the board was wasting money by paying a consultant to advise the district on the change.

The consultant, Joe Moriarty, has been paid $900 a day for occasional assignments since September, 1990, according to his district contract.

“If we can afford a consultant why didn’t you let parents know what was going on?” Warren asked.

“I feel betrayed,” said school booster Steve Worsley, who has three of his nine children in district schools. He questioned why $1 million was to be used for the reconfiguration but had not been used to repair schools.

“I will be calling up the two school board members up for reelection and asking them what platform they are going to run on,” he said.

Teachers, too, vented their anger. “If it works, don’t fix it,” said Howard Drake, a teacher at Dana Junior High, pointing to the high academic performance of the district’s 8,000 students, 93% of whom go to college.

He said, “What reconfiguration will do for Arcadia is what a big earthquake will do for Los Angeles.”

Mike Danielson, who teaches at First Avenue Junior High, said it was offensive to him that the change was portrayed as beneficial to the students when money was the real driving force. He said it would limit ninth-graders’ participation as they become lost in the 3,000-student high school formed by the reconfiguration.

Jason Vervis, an eighth-grader at First Avenue Junior High, said it could mean no more plays, football or band for ninth-graders because they would have to compete with older high school students. He said, “Arcadians always remember their ninth-grade year.”

Bryant concluded the hearing by saying, “We have to do what we feel is right for all the students.”

Administrators recommended the change for 1993 after a $27.4-million school bond measure failed by less than 1% of the vote in September.