It was pure elation inside Bethune K-8\u2019s auditorium on Wednesday night when the superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District made a surprise announcement that 6-8 grade classes will remain at the Bay Terraces neighborhood school.<\/p>\n
Bethune was among four schools the district was looking to transition those grades classes to middle schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease know that we are not touching Bethune,\u201d said Superintendent Fabi Bagula, whose words were met with rousing applause as she spoke in front of the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so stoked,\u201d said Gerald Sisonm who has been teaching at the school for 26 years. \u201cI love our kids, love our community, and seeing all our students come back, it\u2019s a blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Now my little sister can follow in my footsteps, ” said an eighth-grader, Imani.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just a school, it\u2019s a family,\u201d said Bethune graduate, teacher and parent, Nadine Trassare. “When you come here, everyone has love, heart and you see dedication to kids, especially in the teachers.”<\/p>\n
Bethune was one of four schoolsm including Audubon, Fulton and Golden Hill, where, for the most part, the district was considering moving the middle school grades to Bell Middle School. <\/p>\n
Bagula said that, since K-8\u00a0principals (who have all since retired) brought their concerns to the district two years ago, she now has data\u00a0showing there are programming issues at the schools that could keep students from being high school-ready, things like a lack of electives and other educational needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The faculty at Bethune pleaded their case to keep their middle school grades during an hour-plus long meeting, listing a litany of student accomplishments, from how it stacks up to other schools to the 11 students they’ve graduated since 2014 who’ve gone on to be valedictorians and salutatorians.<\/p>\n
Bethune graduate and Morse High senior Raymond Nonato, came back to support her alma mater since he\u2019s living proof of that data.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the No. 1 student at Morse,” Raymond said. “In December, I could potentially be the valedictorian. It\u2019s not because of Morse \u2014 it\u2019s because of the Bethune foundation.”<\/p>\n
To make sure the school continues to graduate kids are ready for high school, the superintendent said it will need to add more high school prep programs, then apologized.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you, and sorry if it caused any hardship,” Bagula said. “I love how you came together.”<\/p>\n
That community came together so students like little Ava, who is in third grade, can follow their dreams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get to go to the grade my sister went, in the same school, following in my sister\u2019s footsteps,” Ava said.<\/p>\n
When it comes to the other schools, at Audubon, Fulton, and Golden Hill, those schools will transition to K-5 schools starting in the 2026-27 school year.<\/p>\n
The district has had community meetings to help families with the transition. The letters sent to families with students attending those schools are below: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was pure elation inside Bethune K-8\u2019s auditorium on Wednesday night when the superintendent of the San Diego…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":253062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,3549,37947,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-253061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-unified-school-district","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115263768486658481","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}