Parents Raise Concerns Over Math Curriculum, Communication Gaps at MacDonald Middle School

Parents of MacDonald Middle School students have expressed concerns about both policies and practices related to math curriculum at the school.

Parents are worried about declining standardized math test scores, the format advanced math classes are being offered and a lack of communication from the district about when students would take the test to qualify to be placed in advanced courses. 

At the June 23 ELPS Board of Education meeting, two mothers of rising sixth graders said Glencairn Elementary School parents were not notified of a test that students can take to test out of sixth grade math and be placed in the seventh grade class until a month before it was offered.

“I understand other elementary schools found out about it in September [2024],” Molly Szpunar said during the meeting’s public comment. “It creates a lot of churn among the kids, there’s confusion. I’m personally confused as to why my kids would need to skip a grade level in math in order to access higher learning. I think it’s okay to have a different bit of differentiated learning in sixth grade. I think kids benefited from it on all ends of the spectrum.”

In a Zoom interview with ELi after the meeting, Szpunar said that she felt the district didn’t want students to take the placement test, saying that almost no resources were provided to students to prepare them for the test, and that the bus transporting them to the middle school for the test was 90 minutes late.

She also took issue with the way the district informed parents about their children’s test results.

“It said that the minimum score necessary to be placed in seventh grade math was 78%,” she said. “Then it read, ‘unfortunately, your student did not meet this benchmark on the assessment.’ Why is it ‘unfortunately?’ The concern I am left with is, will the sixth grade math course be sufficient to prepare my child for the advanced course offered in 8th grade?”

Jessica Kauppi echoed concerns about the placement test, condemning the district for failing to release test scores to parents until it was prompted to do so. She also said that more options for math in the sixth grade are needed, saying, “Putting 11 year olds in class with seventh graders is not an acceptable solution to this problem.”

Kauppi also brought up the declining test scores in math, as displayed in district third through eighth grade scores of the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, or M-STEP assessment. According to mischooldata.org, the number of non-proficient ELPS math students in this age group doubled from 20% in 2014 to 40% in 2024, while the number of advanced students fell from approximately 23% to just 10% during the same time period.

“It is not acceptable to only attend to struggling students,” Kauppi said. “Our ethos says that we care and educate all students and we owe our students who are going into sixth grade with advanced aptitude for math more differentiated instruction and better opportunities for success because the current system is not working.

“Without a change, we risk allowing our currently capable learners to fall behind simply because they are not being challenged early enough and that’s a loss for individual students, our school district and the East Lansing community as a whole.”

ELi spoke with Deputy Superintendent Glenn Mitcham who admitted that the district is working on improving both the process of the sixth grade examination and the middle school math curriculum.

“We’re working on perfecting the process,” he said, “so it’s communicated out to families through the fifth grade teachers. That’s what we attempted to do this year, was bring those students who signed up and decided they wanted to give it a shot. [We] sent buses to the elementary schools to bring them to the middle school to take the test and then bussed them back.

“It didn’t go as smoothly as we would have liked.”

Mitcham said there is no truth to the district trying to put blockades up against students participating in the assessment, just that internal communication needs to be improved.

“We’re very open and very much want to offer [the test] to anybody that wants to attempt it and not put up any hurdles or walls,” he said. 

Mitcham said the district is committed to increasing math proficiency in the middle school. The district has hired math intervention support at the middle school to help students struggling in math. The school is also in the process of updating their curriculum to Connected Math 4.

When asked if these changes will help students catch up after being stymied by the pandemic, Mitcham hesitated.

“What catching up means is debatable exactly,” he said, “but I definitely think progress can be made. Another positive about our math track is that we don’t just have one way to get to advanced math in high school. A lot of the students who want to test out of sixth grade math, they want to get to AP Calculus in high school. And we have a couple different ways for them to achieve that once they get to the high school, not just one.”

Mitcham wants parents to know that he understands their frustrations and concerns, and the district shares them.

“I would ask them to, as best they can, to trust us,” he said. “This bumpiness that we experienced this year with the test, we’re well aware of and we are actively making changes to the process. That’s going to get better.

“And our math achievement scores will improve. We’re deeply committed to offering a program that meets our kids’ needs and can get them to where they need to be. It’s a process and we’re actively working on it.”