We are a group of parents and community residents that oppose the moving of 5th graders into the district's middle schools. We believe that 10 and 11 year-olds are not ready for the peer pressures they will encounter in a 5-8 middle school environment. We are concerned that our children are already growing up too fast and now the Neshaminy School Board wants them to grow up even faster.

We are also concerned that there is a lack of empirical evidence to support the inclusion of fifth graders in middle schools. The 5-8 grade middle school model is a relatively new and untested trend. We do not want the Neshaminy School Board using our children as its guinea pigs.

We are also concerned that throughout the decade long debate over school consolidation the Neshaminy School Board has failed to inform the community that grade reorganization was part of the discussion. We believe this amounts to a gross lack of transparency on the part of the school board. Given this lack of transparency, we are very concerned that the board wants to push this plan through quickly (for the 2014-2015 school year) without the input of the Neshaminy community – the parents and the taxpayers.

As parents we sincerely hope that the school board reconsiders this proposal. As taxpayers, we demand that the concerns of the entire Neshaminy community be heard and that ALL questions related to this proposal are answered before a final decision is made.