Noelani Elementary School parents plan to appeal directly to the state Board of Education and Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto to keep sixth grade at the Manoa school rather than seeing it move to Stevenson Middle School next year, after the school's community council voted late yesterday afternoon to stick to its original plan to see the grade moved.

Parent Melanie Ching said parents plan to gather for public testimony at the next Board of Education meeting March 1 to let board members hear their concerns directly. They will also appeal directly to Hamamoto.

"Roughly 90 percent of the parents were in favor of keeping the sixth grade," said Ching, who said hundreds of Noelani parents had signed petitions opposing moving sixth grade to the middle school.

About 60 or 70 parents, teachers and community members showed up yesterday afternoon at the school library to talk about whether the children were too young to move to a middle school environment. They also discussed resources the school would need to offer an enriched sixth-grade middle school experience at Noelani, and concerns that there hadn't been enough communication with parents regarding the whole scope of the issue.

The Noelani School Community Council yesterday reaffirmed the group's intention to see the sixth grade move to Stevenson next year. The council had voted in June to move the sixth grade.

Concerned parents said that when that original vote was taken last June, Manoa Elementary was also moving its sixth grade to Stevenson, providing a large community of friends moving together to help their transition.

But in January, upset Manoa Elementary parents appealed to the Board of Education to keep their sixth grade at the elementary school. Hamamoto chose to give parents the choice to keep their children at Manoa for sixth grade or move them to Stevenson, and said the elementary school would be allowed to keep its sixth grade through 2013.

Yesterday, a motion by a Noelani School Community Council member to ask the complex area to allow Noelani to do the same thing failed in a 6-4 vote.

One of the overriding concerns by Noelani School Community Council members is whether the elementary school would be able to provide the resources to teach sixth-graders at an enriched middle school level — something that would be expected of the school.

But Ching said: "It seems unfathomable that the DOE would put that expectation on the elementary schools without providing infrastructure or funding and support to get that in place. To say you have to comply — how is that expectation realistic?"

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.