Mill Valley parents fume over kindergarten placements

At least a dozen Mill Valley School District parents are upset over their children’s kindergarten class assignments that place them at the school farthest from their homes.

The placement will result in a traffic nightmare, said Jessica Ilse, who lives in Tam Valley, less than 2 miles away from her preferred choice, Tam Valley Elementary School. Her child, like others, was instead assigned to Strawberry Point Elementary School.

The commute to Strawberry Point involves a route going on and off Highway 101 during rush hour, she said. It will take at least a half-hour each way in heavy traffic, she said.

“Traffic is what a lot of people are mad about when I tell them we are enrolled at Strawberry Point but live in Tam Valley,” Ilse said. “We will all be on the road at the same time because all the schools start at the same time and Strawberry Point doesn’t have before-school child care.”

Brooke Welch, another parent who requested Tam Valley back in February for her daughter, said she was “shocked that the district placed us at Strawberry Point, as this school is the farthest from our home.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” she said.

Other parents declined to talk publicly but said off the record they were upset.

Ilse said she tried to get more information on the reasons for the decision, and was told it involved district policies and teacher contracts. Beyond that, she said, there was no way to challenge or respond to the decision except to put her name on a waiting list for Tam Valley along with 13 other families.

“There’s enough people who want Tam Valley to open up a third kindergarten class,” she said. “I thought the schools were supposed to be for the kids, not for district administration or teachers.”

Elizabeth Kaufman, the district superintendent, said decisions on Mill Valley’s five elementary school placements are made on a districtwide basis, not by individual neighborhoods, as was done previously.

“The board has eliminated school attendance areas and established a district-wide attendance area,” Kaufman said in an email. “Students who reside within district boundaries may apply for enrollment in any district school. The superintendent or designee shall determine the capacity of each school and establish an unbiased process and school assignment criteria for assigning students to district schools.”

The districtwide goal this year is to have at least two classes per grade level, Kaufman said. Although she gave no specifics, it appears that taking away a full kindergarten class from Strawberry Point and adding a third class at Tam Valley would go against that goal.

Also, teacher contracts includes “a provision that class sizes will be balanced across the district,” Kaufman said.

Ilse, who spoke during the public comment portion of the July 18 school board meeting, said she was told unofficially that classroom teachers like to have a partner teacher in the second class in each grade at the same level. But that preference for a partner teacher is not part of the teacher contracts, Ilse said.

According to Kaufman, the board has decided there will be 11 kindergarten classes in the five schools for 2024-25. Kaufman added that the first priority for placement in a particular school is if a child has siblings who are already attending that school.

Proximity to home is the second criteria, Kaufman said. Families who are not chosen for their preferred school will then have the option to put their names on a waitlist for another school, she said.

This is the second year in a row that parents are publicly protesting attendance placement decisions at the Mill Valley School District. In May 2023, a group of parents alleged the district was disregarding their wish to have their children attend Edna Maguire Elementary School.

Some families said they specifically bought homes near the Edna Maguire school so their children could walk or bike there. But with the districtwide attendance approach, those families have to drive them to a school across town, the parents said.

A year later, Ilse questioned the same districtwide approach.

“While I understand that this is not a neighborhood school but a districtwide placement, they do specifically include proximity as one of their considered factors,” Ilse said. “So why put almost an entire class of kids at the farthest school?”