School Committee Votes Fifth Grade Return To Middle School

by William F. Galvin

            HARWICH -- The Harwich Elementary School is experiencing overcrowding conditions. At the end of the school year last year, half of the school district population was housed in the recently refurbished school on South Street.

            Following a Grade Configuration Study conducted last spring and public hearings, the school committee voted a couple of weeks ago to return the fifth grade to the Harwich Middle School next September.

            It has been four years since the fifth grade left the middle school and located in the elementary school. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Carolyn Cragin said the decision to relocate the grade was made quickly in 2005, in the face of a failed override.

            “The change was made in hopes of saving money on student transportation,” Cragin said. “The sense was people were looking at any savings.”

            But the elementary school was designed for a maximum of 600 students. It’s currently closer to 700 and is the largest elementary school on Cape Cod, the superintendent said. In May, there were 676 students in the school and the district-wide student population was 1,352.

            “It’s a big relief,” Elementary School Principal Sam Hein said on Tuesday.

Hein said the crowding was serious enough to curtail activities and programming at the school. He said the special education program did not have enough space and that had to be addressed. The foreign language teacher was floating from classroom to classroom, he said.

Under present conditions, officials couldn’t effectively use the building to increase or add new programs, it curtailed activities. Once the move occurs, Hein said, they will be able to integrate all their programs in an equitable fashion

“This will help the fifth graders be the best they can,” Hein said of the move. “They can do it better and have more opportunities with more space.”

In order to accommodate the fifth grade classes in the elementary school, Cragin said special education classrooms became grade classrooms and the special education resource rooms were forced into smaller quarters that do not meet required standards. While the fifth grade classrooms average 878 square feet, the SPED resources rooms average 311 square feet. A state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education review report cited inadequate resource rooms at the elementary school.

            “The onsite team through observation and staff interviews has found that the district does not provide adequate resource room space at the elementary level (grades 1, 3, 4 and 5), or for the resource room at Harwich High School. The spaces in question are not equal in all physical respects to the average standards of other regular education classrooms,” the report stated. It recommended corrective actions.   

            “The middle school is clearly where the space is in the district,” Cragin said.

            Middle School Principal John Riley did not return calls to The Chronicle on Tuesday.

            A Grade Configuration Study committee was put together last January made up of parents, teachers, a school committee member, administrators and Principals Hein and Riley. They conducted two surveys, and a public hearing was held in May and the school committee held a second public hearing at the end of September.

            “Based upon its analysis of the enrollment, space, special education, academic and extracurricular considerations, the grade configuration committee concluded that grade five should be returned to the middle school,” the study stated. An administration report offered the same conclusion.

            They looked for evidence that said that fifth grade is better off in one place or the other, Cragin said, but there was no clear evidence. The superintendent pointed out schools across the Cape show no consistency in the placement of fifth grades.

            “It’s about the kind of instruction they (students) get and the support they get,” Cragin said.

            Cragin added she was once an assistant principal of an intermediate school with grades from five to seven and the happiest of the students were the fifth graders. What is important, she said, is that the facilities are used to provide the services students deserve.

            The space is available and segregated in the middle school, Cragin said, adding it has been “poached a little” since the move four years ago. But the superintendent was confident the transition would be a smooth one.

            “It’s important they make sure students are excited about the new place,” she said.  “An additional advantage,” she added, is that fifth grade teachers felt they benefited more at the middle school than elementary school because of additional opportunities there.

            When the switch was made four years ago to the elementary school, some parents were pushing for the transition because they were concerned with the language and activities the younger children were being subjected to on middle school buses.

            That is a concern of parents and those issues will be addressed, Cragin said. Officials plan to be more attentive than in the past, she said, adding the administration needs to know when these problems happen. The superintendent also said many school systems transport the younger students with older ones. Chatham buses fifth and sixth graders with upper level students, she said.

11/5/09