Parents challenge Superintendent’s claim 20 student minimum for next lab school freshman class not met
DELMAR –On April 17, Bethlehem Central School District’s Superintendent Jody Monroe advised some 8th grade families by email that no new freshmen will be admitted to Lab School in September. Monroe said the 20 student enrollment threshold she set was not met. Parents angry about the decision question how the district counted student interest.
Monroe told these families via email, “While your child qualified for admission to Lab School next year, there were not enough eligible eighth grade students to meet the district’s requirement that a freshman class would need a cohort of at least 20 students to run next year. Therefore, no students will be enrolled in Lab School in Grade 9 in fall 2024.” She added, “this decision was made with the best interests of the students in mind.”
Parents say they were caught by surprise by the decision because the district made a presentation to 8th graders on April 9, followed by a parent informational meeting on April 11 for enrollment.
“We are reeling from the unexpected announcement,” said 8th grade parent Heather White. In addition, an informational meeting sponsored by a parent group and the Middle School PTO was to take place on April 18, the day after Monroe made the announcement.
Lab school and 8th grade parent Brian Rose said the abruptness of Monroe’s announcement rendered “suspect” Monroe’s statement the “magic” 20 number was not reached.
“There was no published deadline or time frame issued,” said parent Katie Quinn. “When we asked guidance counselors, the response was we will let you know or will get back to you.”
In an April 18 email obtained by Spotlight, Monroe told a parent, “there was no specific deadline because it was dependent on when the counselors could meet with all of the students and follow up with families.” She said the district was already behind in its scheduling process “because we delayed this to see if there was in fact enough interest to enroll a freshmen class, so I asked them to do this as quickly as possible.” She continued,”[b]ased on the fact that most families received the communication and were aware of the process, the counselors are confident that anyone truly interested in lab school has had an opportunity to meet with them.”
Questions about the process
Parents dispute that there was a “process” or that adequate time was afforded to assess student interest.
One 8th grade parent said she had been speaking with Bethlehem middle school assistant principal Mark Warford about Lab School as an option for her son the day before Monroe’s announcement.
“Yesterday [April 16] they were talking to me about the program,” she said. “Mr. Warford said they are hoping to have the number of people interested to have the program.”
Lab School’s fate has hung in the balance since January 23 when Monroe announced Lab School would stop enrolling new students and phase out over two years beginning in 2024-25. Parents, students and alumni attended school board meetings in droves to challenge that decision. Then on March 4, Monroe reversed course, announcing current 9th graders could remain in the Lab School in September 2024. In a second reversal, on March 19, Monroe advised Lab School families she would allow 8th graders to enroll in Lab School for the 2024-25 school year if at least 20 students register. Monroe said that shift was because “data collected by current Lab School staff members relative to the lottery and application process since 2017 was found to be inconsistent” with data she presented to the school board at its March 11 meeting.
Questions on count
Parents question District efforts to promote Lab School and the reliability of the Superintendent’s threshold count. Lab school parent Arthur Siegel said, “It is pretty clear that the administration did not want this to succeed since they made very little effort to advertise the recruitment, rebuffed parent offers to help, rejected students based on selection criteria that were constantly shifting, dissuaded many interested students from applying, and generally threw up as many roadblocks as possible.”
They claim the District kept switching the criteria for Lab School eligibility over the week to reduce the number to below the 20 student enrollment threshold. 8th grade parent Tom White, said school officials at the information meeting told parents accelerated math classes would not disqualify Lab School enrollment. He said the district indicated that the conflict had been resolved by having the 9th and 11th grade math class be taught by the same teacher.
A few days later, his daughter’s guidance counselor advised double accelerated math made her ineligible for Lab School. When White questioned the contradiction, he received an email response stating, “The program in the past will not be how they plan to move forward with students in those areas. This is a scheduling and programming decision. I have passed your concerns on to my supervisor and the superintendent.”
Another 8th grade parent had a similar experience. The parent was told at the April 11 informational meeting the parent’s student could enroll in both Lab School and accelerated math. An April 17 email from a middle school guidance counselor informed this parent that the student “would not be considered for Lab School next year because her child was recommended For Honors Geometry BC in 9th grade” and that Lab School Math does not align with accelerated and honors level coursework. Furthermore, the particular course falls outside of the Lab School classes and will directly affect and conflict with Lab School core classes.
The parent then contacted Deputy Superintendent David Hurst, stating that the student might choose to apply to Lab School in lieu of accelerated math and should be allowed to make that choice.
The email response received from Hurst on April 18th, the day after Monroe announced her decision, did not address that issue, but only spoke to scheduling difficulties between Lab School and honors and AP classes. Spotlight has a copy of these communications from the parent, who requested we not use the parent’s name.
Students should choose
Lab School parent Dennis Whitford said students with honors classes were automatically deemed ineligible for Lab School instead of offering them the choice between honors courses and Lab School. “Like any other scheduling conflict, kids should get to decide,” said White. Parent Heather White said if accelerated math is an automatic disqualifying factor from enrolling in Lab School, then students should have been told that in 7th grade. She said her older daughter had been enrolled in both accelerated math and Lab School. As for her 8th grader, who is in double advanced math, she said “she would give up double advanced math in a heartbeat to be in Lab School.”
Rose said, “they whittled down the numbers by applying a set of criteria that were not communicated.” He said teachers who ran the information session said one thing, but then this week it changed. “It’s not difficult to say that they are doing whatever they can to reduce the number below 20,” Rose said.
Quinn also insisted that there were sufficient numbers to meet the 20 student goal. “The district kept deciding this group of kids isn’t eligible and then this group isn’t eligible and whittled it away until there weren’t enough numbers.” Heather White queried why they brought all the kids who were automatically disqualified into the information assembly if they knew Lab School was not a possibility.
Rose said there were other “reasons to believe it’s an undercount.” He said guidance counselors steered students away from Lab School. “The number is actually greater than 20 if you don’t put too many roadblocks in the way,” Rose said. He said his 8th grader’s guidance counselor kept emphasizing that she cannot be in honors courses if she enrolls in Lab School. He said they had to tell the guidance counselor, “No, we want her to be in Lab School.” He said other parents had similar conversations with guidance counselors who were discouraging enrolling in Lab School. “That seems to be the marching order,” he said.
Confusion in lab school process
Parents also reported confusion about the enrollment process. Some students were told on April 12 that they were eligible for Lab School and they would receive an application. Some later heard nothing or that the student was now deemed ineligible. Others received an e-mail stating, “I wanted to reach out to let you know that I met with ___ to discuss her interest in Lab School for the 2024-25 school year. We will be sending out a Lab School application in the coming days.”
Whitford said there was no application sent and when he asked when it would be available, he was told to talk to a guidance counselor. On April 15, Whitford received an email stating all students had met with their guidance counselors, but his child had not. He contacted the counselor’s office and met with his son’s guidance counselor on April 16 when the counselor told him his student was eligible for Lab School. On April 17, he received Monroe’s announcement that there would be no Lab School for his son’s class.
“They were not advocating for the program in a realistic way. If you want something to continue you don’t make the situation confusing,” Whitford said.
Monroe said in a April 18 email there was no application because, ‘Following the parent meeting and the initial contact there was no need to do an application process because the numbers did not warrant the need to do so.”
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Another Lab School parent Steve Gold said that rather than assigning blame, the goal is to preserve the program. However, he said there has been a lot of misinformation and this has become a “self-fulfilling prophecy. If they didn’t skew the process we would have had at least 20 kids.”
Quinn agreed. “I had been optimistic that maybe we could move forward in good faith, but after what I have seen this week, I don’t think there was a genuine intent to see this through. Instead, we forced the issue, they had to do this and they worked to sabotage it,” she said.
Some parents have not given up hope that this decision can once again be reversed. Jonathan Fishbein, a former school board member and parent of Lab School alumnae, said Monroe had canceled every meeting he had scheduled with her, but he is hoping to speak with her this week. He believes if there is an issue with students being in Lab School and accelerated classes there is a solution. “There are many ways this cat can be skinned so the question is can we get them to move the ball?,” Fishbein said.
“We are hoping to push back on this because the program has great value and because a cohort model needs more than two grades,” said Quinn. Whitford said he will continue to write to board of education members.
Lab School parent Rob Cole, said, “Yes, we will continue to fight this because we love our children and Lab School is the best program for them, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also feeling discouraged.” Cole cited the administration’s attitude. “Even when we “win,” we lose. Lab School cannot thrive with an administration so actively hostile to it. We can’t require the administration to love Lab School. And we can’t change the administration… at least not yet.”
When asked for comment, the district’s spokesperson JoEllen Gardner told Spotlight Monroe is not available, but she will do a “quick update on Lab School” at the April 24 board meeting. Spotlight also attempted to reach individual district employees and the district told Spotlight in an email, “please do not reach out to individual employees of the district.”
Quinn plans to ask at the board meeting how many students committed and how many got “peeled away” because they were told by the district they were not eligible. “My sense is there are more than enough students interested,” said Quinn. We had at least 16-18 students interested a number of weeks ago and that was before any of the information meetings occurred.”