The Albert Lea school board on Monday night approved the administration’s previous recommendation for changing the alignment of schools in the district.

The realignment will mean sixth-graders will attend Southwest Middle School starting in the 2011 academic year. The move leaves kindergartners through fifth-graders in the elementary schools. The realignment will also move eighth-graders out of Southwest and into Albert Lea High School.

More than 25 people were present at the meeting.

School board member Jolinda Schreiber said she understood that parents were uncomfortable because when she had children in school there was a realignment. She said she thought sixth-graders were ready to leave elementary schools and that eighth-graders will have more opportunities at the high school.

She made a motion to keep eighth-graders housed in a separate area in the high school. Superintendent Mike Funk said this would be mostly possible, except for classes in the gym and science labs. He said the high school will make changes that the board will be able to see before the next school year.

“You’ll see a full plan,” Funk told the board.

Funk said he thought the board’s process was deliberative and that it was not easy. He said the board and administration looked at all the options with consideration for academics, health and efficiency.

“I’m comfortable with the recommendation the administration has provided,” Funk said.

Schreiber and members Linda Laurie and Jill Marin all spoke about the trepidations they had while considering all the choices. Shreiber said she was worried about the eighth-graders in the high school, but that she thinks the sixth-graders will do well at the middle school.

Marin said she thought kindergartners will do best in the elementary — not moving them to a location of their own — and sixth-graders will do best at the middle school.

“I understand the fear of moving eighth-graders to the high school,” Marin said. “It’s something new and unchartered.”

She encouraged parents to talk to their children about what’s happening at school and said she is willing to hear from parents about concerns they have.

Member Sally Ehrhardt said that she thought the realignment will be positive for the school district.

Board chairman Bill Leland thanked community members who were involved in the process.

“This decision just makes clear sense,” Leland said. “The hardest part of any change is transition.”

He said he’d like to see the community be continually involved in the realignment by giving the board feedback as the changes take place. He said the board is willing to help with any problems that arise from the realignment.

The board received a recommendation from administration at a workshop on Nov. 9. Other options for realignment that were not chosen were to have a separate kindergarten center or a separate sixth-grade center.

In other action, the board heard from Southwest’s Food Service Director Mary Nelson about the new snack carts in the elementary schools. The snack carts were purchased with help from the Statewide Health Improvement Program and Pioneering Healthy Communities. Nelson said the program has been popular. In the first trimester an average of 57 percent of students were signed up to get snacks each day and 45 percent were signed up to get milk each day. The snack program costs each student $15 per trimester. Nelson said the most popular snack was apples and that they go through cases each week for the students.

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