The School Committee Redistricting ad Hoc Subcommittee met for the twelfth time last Wednesday to discuss plans to relieve the Center School Elementary of its population size to relocate the integrated pre-school there.
Two motions were made to recommend to the School Committee that the Tammie Lane, Loris Road, and Reynolds Road neighborhood and the Keys Drive and Essex Drive neighborhood be re-districted from the Center School, both of which passed unanimously.
With the new districts proposed by the subcommittee, the Center School’s K-6 population would be approximately 220 students, with a class size of 18-22 before open enrollment for each grade.
“This iteration of the redistricting committee was put together with a focus on seeking relief in terms of building population on the east and south sides of Peabody,” said Committee Chair Jarrod Hochman. “One of the key principles that we talked about was keeping neighborhoods together.”
Superintendent Dr. Josh Vadala explained how when the subcommittee was first formed, the Center School was overcrowded with 440 students split between 22 classrooms and only two additional space specialist needs.
He also gave context to the preschool’s relocation, which came about after space was needed in the John E. McCarthy Elementary School for Center School students to attend while their school was going under renovation.
The city decided the best route was moving out the integrated preschool from the McCarthy School to the Center School annex, where it is now operating.
“Based on what we’ve seen, our desire is to basically create the footprint the McCarthy School used to have, which is 12 homerooms, and then spaces for instructional staff and things like that,” Vadala said. “What we’d be looking at is to bring two classrooms per grade back to the Center School, and then utilize the current McCarthy School for three classrooms per grade.”
To figure out school districts, committee members use data and software to create the different neighborhoods. Based on the information gathered, they then advise the School Committee on how they should move forward on the matter of redistricting.
“We used this information when we had to relocate two grades from the Welch School, and we did that based on geographic region and we relocated the fourth and fifth grade from the Welch during that project,” Vadala said. “The current fourth grade, what is being proposed, is 36 students at the Center School, plus anyone who wants to come back.”
Emphasized by Hochman throughout the meeting was his belief in the proposed plan for redistricting having sufficient space for a student population in the Center School that is under the obligated classroom size.
Also reiterated was how all students who were in the Center School would be allowed to return, but according to Vadala, only six or seven students outside of the school’s geographical area expressed interest in returning.
“We do not believe that there is a large number of students that would negatively impact the class size,” Vadala said. “The numbers that we have, with the way that the neighborhoods are, we believe that the class sizes will not be overenrolled, and we will have plenty of seats to welcome students back.”
As the process continues, families will have the opportunity to meet individually with Vadala to make sure their needs are being met.
Still, during a public participation period, parents expressed concerns with disrupting the Center School students after they had already been displaced due to the building renovations.
In response, Hochman underscored the importance of taking the load of the aging building which was being overextended in terms of how many students were going there.
“It’s a building that just wasn’t intended to house as many kids as was there before the repairs started taking place. It’s not capable of handling that many students,” Hochman said. “We have to give this building some relief. If we leave it the way it is, it’s going to fail much sooner, and then we’re going to be talking about some dramatic changes.”
