At its November 10th meeting, the School Committee discussed enrollment options for the new Bancroft School with input from parents and community members. Representatives of the School Building Committee and the design firm of Symmes, Maini & McKee were also in attendance.
During the course of discussion, several issues became more clear:
- Any option that expands the Bancroft K-5 population above 500 in order to alleviate the overcrowding at Shawsheen requires a redistricting that would affect other schools.
- The possibility of closing Shawsheen entirely by expanding Bancroft and redistricting is an option that can be explored. We will need further information on potential cost savings and the impact on other schools.
- If an option involving redistricting is chosen, the decision about exactly how district lines would be re-drawn would not be made until closer to when the new Bancroft opens. However, we would look at possibilities based on current population data to inform our deliberations.
- Some or all of the Pre-K program could be moved to Bancroft or to another location in town.
School Committee members indicated a willingness to consider the possibility of expanding Bancroft by some number up to 200 students, as well as a willingness to consider the option of either a complete or incremental closing of Shawsheen. Its next meeting, on Tuesday, November 17th at 6:00 pm, will be entirely devoted to a discussion of these options. The School Building Committee will also be in attendance, as will the design team from Symmes, Maini, & McKee.
We very much want to hear input from the community as we discuss what the ideal enrollment number at Bancroft should be given educational objectives, fiscal realities, and district-wide capacity issues; the possible closure of Shawsheen; and the location of the town-wide Pre-K program. The potential impact of a larger Bancroft on the surrounding neighborhood must be considered as well, and this is what the Feasibility Study is designed to determine.
Please attend, and bring us your questions and input! The meeting will be held in the School Committee room, 36R Bartlet Street. Enter through the Senior Center entrance and take the elevator to the second floor.
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The discussion of population size at the new Bancroft school should be mindful of the age or grade level of the additional students. Since traffic flow is a safety concern at the site, the school committee's analysis should take into consideration the fact that parents generally prefer to drive younger children who may not be willing to or perhaps mature enough to take a bus. The addition of pre-k students, in particular, would most likely result in more individual cars dropping off at the school than in more students riding the buses.
ReplyDeleteWhere will this meeting be held?
ReplyDeleteMy daughter attends Shawsheen, and she has difficulty with larger noisy environments. While my family strongly prefers that Shawsheen remain open and separate from other schools, we understand that fiscally this may not be possible. If Shawsheen has to merge with another school, please consider ways to keep the community as supportive and wonderful as it has been. Please also consider building the school in such a way that noise and distraction from a larger building/more students could be kept to a minimum.
ReplyDeleteLocation of meeting?
ReplyDeleteSorry, the location of the meeting is:
ReplyDeleteSchool Committee Room
36R Bartlet Street
Enter through the Senior Center entrance and take the elevator to the second floor
To make this a productive meeting, I suggest starting it with a brief presentation that includes the following:
ReplyDelete- current and projected student populations and maximum capacities for each of the elementary schools
- a breakdown of the Shawsheen student population by elementary school district (as shown in the SMMA presentation to the PTOs)
- a table that shows the number of classrooms and number of students per room for a new Bancroft at the various capacities being considered (500, 590, 700...)
This information should also be posted on this blog.
It would also be helpful to provide some background (here and at the meeting) on Shawsheen, including a description of the existing programs and facilities and an explanation of why they are being considered as part of this project. This would help anyone new to the project get up to speed quickly. It has been my experience that people who don't have kids at Shawsheen don't know much about it, even it they have kids at other schools.
One statement I've heard made is that "Because Shawsheen is a choice school, we need to consider that if the facility or a change in its location may mean that current families might no longer choose to go there." Of course, this also could mean that other families, who have not chosen Shawsheen, might choose a similar school in a different location or because it's a new facility. Can a quick-turn online survey be done to provide input to the discussion on the primary reason(1st and 2nd to force the key reasons to the top) for choosing Shawsheen? Some reasons to include are: location (closer than the other school to which I'm districted), Younger children only, Smaller school setting, Principal and Faculty, Programs only available there (not sure what these would be as I'm not a Shawsheen parent currently).Shawsheen administrators or parents can provide the other relevant reasons. This will help the school committee and administrators understand whether we need to continue to offer a choice school like this and the impact of a change in location and other redistricting decisions on the school population.
ReplyDeleteIn anticipation of an extremely large turnout tonight, is it possible to relocate to a larger room/facility?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it is not possible to relocate the meeting to a larger facility on short notice and still be able to televise it. Because we would like people to be able to watch on TV, we will have to keep it in the School Committee room as planned. However, we will do our very best to accommodate everyone who would like to attend and comment in person.
ReplyDeleteWe completely agree with Mary's comment above. Please post here or on Town of Andover website the following information: current/projected student populations and capacities by school. We need to look at this data to make informed, objective and hopefully non-emotion based decisions that will impact all residents.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteIn response to the requests for current student populations, etc: under the "Useful Links" section of this blog, click on "SMMA Community Presentations." If you then click on the November 14th SMMA Abutters' Presentation, you will find a slide showing all the elementary schools and what their current populations are, in total and by grade. There is also a slide showing the student population of Shawsheen, broken down by school district, for both the Pre-K and K-2 programs. Finally, there is a slide that shows a table with the number of classrooms and number of students per room displayed for a new Bancroft at various (but not all possible) enrollments.
In terms of capacity at each school: this is not a number we can easily define, as it depends--among other things--on what assumptions you make about class size. The School Committee has a policy which defines a class size range for each grade level as follows:
Kindergarten: 16-24
Grades 1 & 2: 19-27
Grades 3 - 5: 21-29
Historically, we have kept most class sizes at or below the midpoint of this range, but this may not always be possible.