Feeder School Committee will evaluate principal feedback during the week of Oct. 16 and meet with parents during the week of Oct. 23.
By: Nick D’Amore
The Board of Education will wait until the end of the year before deciding which elementary schools will feed into which middle schools in the 2002-2003 school year.
The decision was made after a request by the Feeder School Committee. According to board member Daniel Watts, committee members didn’t think making the decision during the summer, when many people are away on vacation, was a good idea.
The school board is trying to decide how to distribute students to its two middle schools in 2002. There currently is one middle school, Crossroads. However, the Upper Elementary School will become the Crossroads North middle school in September 2002, when a new elementary school is slated to open at the intersection of Deans Rhode Hall Road and Route 130.
The committee is down to three options for the elementary school principals to review.
The committee will evaluate principal feedback during the week of Oct. 16 and meet with parents sometime during the week of Oct. 23. The committee will present its findings and make a recommendation to the school board Nov. 19.
Dr. Watts said the committee is concerned about sending the two largest elementary schools, which will be Indian Fields and the new school, to the same middle school.
"It’s important to not have one school dominate," he said.
Additionally, the committee wants to avoid using Route 1 as a boundary, with students from either side attending a different middle school.
He also said there is concern with keeping neighborhoods together. This was also a concern during the elementary school redistricting process, when students from the same neighborhood were redistricted into different schools.
"It is unlikely all our criteria will be met," said Dr. Watts.
In June, the board approved a short-term feeder plan that mostly will affect current fifth-and sixth-graders. Under the plan, students will be assigned to the two middle schools based on the elementary school they attend.
The short-term plan has students from Brunswick Acres, Greenbrook, Dayton and Indian Fields schools attending Crossroads South and students from Cambridge, Constable and Monmouth Junction schools attending Crossroads North.
UES and Crossroads will become grades six through eight middle schools in 2002-03 as part of a school redistricting plan. At that time, all elementary schools will be kindergarten through fifth grade.
James Warfel, principal of the current Crossroads building, said the short-term plan will be in place for two years, until the current fourth-graders begin attending middle school in 2003-04.