NASSP

Bulletin
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Student Mobility and Curriculum Concerns

Gene E. Megiveron
NASSP Bulletin 1980 64: 109
DOI: 10.1177/019263658006443219
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Student Mobility and

Curriculum Concerns
Gene E.

WHEN

may
before a

Many questions

be answered
curricuium change is
initiated or

consummated

as an

ongoing

program. To
know your student

bodys make-up is a
good way to develop
curriculum that is
both relevant and
timely. To learn of
your student bodys
longevity in the
district is not difficult
to do and is important,
as illustrated here.
a

Megiveron
I WAS

to a district

new

as

building principal, I asked a key question:

&dquo;How many of our students have been
with us for two of the three years they have
been in high school?&dquo; There was no effective data to use for our answer, and my
curiosity was only satisfied when three
simple questions were later asked of every
student.
1. Have you been in this districts public
schools during your entire school experience ? YES - NO . If yes,
you do not have to go any farther.
2. If no, please indicate the district you
were in immediately prior to your

transfer. DISTRICT
and
3. Into which grade did you enroll when
you came here? GRADE
From these three questions many data
were extracted. We felt that the data had
real significance to the study of curriculum.
We realized that each student must be
taught at his or her own level and assisted
to go as far as possible. Also, we had to
know how to plan a program outline
through which we could guide students and
allow for many forms of individualizing.
We wanted to be aware of the many groups
of youngsters we were serving. We felt
that knowing whether they were from
_________

Gene E. Megiveron is superintendent of the New

Rochelle (N. Y.) Public Schools.

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109 Teknologi Malaysia on October 17, 2014

110

within

our own

impact

on

district

had transferred into it would have

significant
development.
We asked many questions of the staff, based on the following data,
to raise issues for them to study, ponder, and evaluate before they began
to submit their annual curricula change requests.
1. Residents in the district for all school experiences-K-10, 11, or
12-comprised 56.14 percent of the student body.
2. Total transfers into the district in grades one and forward comprised 43.86 percent of the student body.
or

program

3. From out of state came 35.9 percent of all transfers and 15.8 percent of our high school student body. This was the biggest of four
groups into which we categorized students.
4. Seventh through twelfth grade received 59 percent of all transfers and 26 percent of the high school student body.

Selected questions we asked of the staff in our high school were as

follows:
1. Where should we concentrate our district-wide involvement in
curriculum committees?
2. Should our program become even more flexible to allow for the
great influx of transfers into our school district and into the
secondary level?
3. Do teachers need to review very carefully each fall, each
semester?
4. Can we develop teacher-made tests that will assist us in the determination of achievement, ability, or aptitude for enrollees
each fall/spring?
5. Can we use last years final exams?
6. Are not teacher-pupil planning, concept-centered units, and individualized instruction the best means to attain our goals with
so many new students?
7. What skills and past records are these transfer students bringing

to our

program?

8. What do

need to know about the students who are leaving as

enrolling? Is our student body really
Do we need to match the data on those leaving and
new enrollees first?
9. Is more review necessary than we once thought, especially in
courses buiit primarily on suggested prerequisites?
10. What are the communitys new expectations, mores, and beliefs as
related to the culturally, socially, intellectually, economically

compared
changing?

we

to those who are

changed student body?

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111

The collective thinking of our staff

tions. Would you believe 20 more?

brought

about many

more

ques-

Some

Suggestions
most high schools?

What needs to be done in

Here are four suggestions for you:
w First,
you should take a careful look at records of those leaving and
those arriving and record data deemed necessary by the staff for a
thorough study of the ever-changing student body. Socio-economic
background, I.Q., G.P.A., skills, or whatever can be tallied.
. Second,
you should look at the data and the questions, then answer
all you can, after deliberate study in a departmental setting be-

of varying expectations.
Third, you could look at the same data and same questions on an
interdisciplinary approach and again answer all you can.
. Fourth,
your total staff should pull the material together and a
steering committee, counselors, and administration interpret the
data, reply to further questions the staff may have, and make
cause

recommendations to the total staff based on all three studies and

the interpretation of other resource persons as well.
Why do secondary people need to be so curious? Administrators need
to have a different feel for programs if they find that nearly half of
their students are new to the district after they begin their schooling.
It seems to me that we need to plan a program, at the high school level,
which calls for a great deal more review, summarizing, and then collective planning if a schools enrollment changes as fast as ours did. Also,
it is shown that to include grades seven, eight, and nine brought 59 percent of the students to the district. (So the junior highs cannot be
excluded from review.)
It may be of interest to note that the average percentage of students
thought to be gained by transfer was from five to seven percent when I
asked members of the staff who had been around for a long period of
time. Yet, 20.1 percent of all transfers came to the high school in grades
10 through 12. How does your district stand under this scrutiny?
We have much work to do. Lets get at curriculum which truly is for
the students-not the faculty. For, at your school, you just ought to believe that, &dquo;change is an interesting climate.&dquo;

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