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Date: 1/12/2017
WILBRAHAM – Nearly half of the Thornton W. Burgess (TWB) Middle School student population could be moved to other schools in the district in the near future. The school has been struggling with a decline in enrollment for the past several years.
Forty-seven Hampden parents have requested that their children be transferred from TWB to Wilbraham Middle School (WMS). The School Committee is slated to review the requests at an upcoming executive session meeting on Jan. 19.
In addition, 50 fifth grade students will be transferred to Green Meadows Elementary School. The 97 potential transfers represent nearly 44 percent of TWB’s population of 222 students.
TWB Principal Amy Bostian told Reminder Publications there are 49 students in grade 6, 60 students in grade 7, and 63 eighth grade students at TWB.
At the School Committee’s Jan. 10 meeting, Superintendent of Schools Albert Ganem Jr. stated there have been 19 requests for grade 6 students, 14 requests for seventh graders, and 14 requests for grade 8 students to be moved from TWB to WMS.
School Committee Chair Lisa Morace also addressed the legality of allowing transfers after a failed vote to amend the regional agreement between the two towns. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education stated the committee is in compliance with the law.
“Everything that we do we do run by the attorney,” she added. “We are always mindful of the law and we consult our attorney when making decisions with regards to these sensitive situations and we are allowed to conduct this in executive session because it specifically deals with students and student records, which are protected by federal and state law.”
She stated the language of the regional agreement allows the committee to consider transfers and the committee must decide whether they are prudent and in the “best interest of the child.”
The proposed amendment to the regional agreement, which failed overwhelmingly in Hampden and was approved by a majority of Wilbraham residents, would have allowed for all TWB students to be transferred into a unified middle school at WMS, the district’s short-term plan to solve the district’s problem with declining enrollment.
In related news, the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) denied applications to renovate or build new buildings for Hampden and Wilbraham’s middle schools.
The MSBA typically reimburses districts for school building projects at a rate of 50 percent or higher.
“On Dec. 22, right before the holiday break, we received a letter from the [MSBA] that said that although we submitted a wonderful proposal; that we we’re not at this time going to be moved forward,” Ganem said. “So, we were given the opportunity, because it was such a well written proposal, that we could resubmit that.”
He added the district has until April 9 to resubmit its statement of interest to the MSBA for reconsideration.
“With full disclosure, once we first had our initial meeting with the MSBA, one of the things they asked is to inform them as soon as the vote was done,” Ganem said. “One of the things I had to do as the superintendent of Hampden and Wilbraham was contact the MSBA and let them know exactly what took place with the vote. Although they publicly have not said that that’s the reason why, they have said the differences is because of the taxes and we weren’t able to move to the next level because the money wasn’t there for it to take place.”
The committee also addressed changing the way it interacts with the community via public comment and agreed to allow committee members to make rebuttals and to respond directly to resident comments during this period.
More than 40 people attended the meeting and several residents questioned the decisions of the committee to allow transfer requests of TWB students to WMS.
Wilbraham resident Michael Dane said he believes the committee presents a “rosy one-sided view” of ideas.
“Alternative suggestions are often not considered by those who bring them forward and those people are even ridiculed,” he explained. “We went forward and voted on the consolidation of the middle schools without input from the MSBA on our statement of interest. This was a fatal mistake right there.”
School Committee member William Bontempi responded to Dane by stating, “The idea that bringing in the MSBA before the middle school vote would be antithetical. The idea that the MSBA would entertain the option of renovating two schools and two disparate under populated schools makes absolutely no sense.”