Principal Martin McEvoy, far right, outlines the reason for the grade changes for the School Committee on Wednesday night.

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — Principal Martin McEvoy is combining two third-grade classes into one and splitting the kindergarten class into two.

 

The third grade has 26 students and the kindergarten has 25. McEvoy said kindergarten students are experiencing school for their first time and pose more difficult challenges than third-graders. 

 

"Twenty-five students in a kindergarten class is very challenging for the kids for many different reasons," McEvoy said.

 

This particular third-grade class is also outperforming all other grades when it comes to academic benchmarks and fewer students are on individualized education and 504 plans, he said.

 

Last month, while still serving as principal, Ellen Boshe also supported splitting the kindergarten class and asked the School Committee to consider hiring another teacher.

 

New Superintendent Douglas Dias on Wednesday simply said, "I don't have enough money to hire another teacher." 

 

Sean MacDonald, president of the Lanesborough Education Association, said he supported splitting the kindergarten class but not combining the third grade. He was joined by parents in urging school officials to keep two third-grade classes.

 

"That third grade is the first year for MCAS and third grade has struggled with MCAS," MacDonald said.

 

Parent Mark Balora said the kids are being "dealt a raw deal." While they may be outperforming some classes academically, there is still nearly a quarter of the students underperforming and Balora says he fears those won't be served in the larger class.

 

"We moved here six years ago because Lanesborough had a great reputation with schools and unfortunately, I haven't had that experience," Balora said.

 

This particular class started school as one class, was split, and now is being put back together. 

 

"These kids were together. There is a reason they were split up. One teacher couldn't handle them all," he said.

 

McEvoy said the third-grade teacher, Anna Mello, already has plans and is capable of handling the larger class. He said additional support will be given to her to ensure the students get a quality education. That support includes being assigned a "very capable" paraprofessional to help, use of an additional classroom, and McEvoy said he will personally be spending a lot of time in the classrooms to make sure she has everything she needs.

 

MacDonald, Dias, and School Committee Chairwoman Regina DiLego all said they would prefer two classes but the budget cuts make it difficult to hire another teacher. This year's budget is $160,000 less than last year and the three all said that was too much. 

 

A group of parents attended the meeting and were split in their remarks. Some thanked the committee for splitting the kindergarten while others urged for keeping two third-grade classes.

"The school budget last year was cut drastically and that put us in this situation," Dias said, adding that if it were up to him there would be two classes for every grade.

 

Questions over reserves and school choice surrounded the budget debate and ultimately $157,000 was reduced in comparison to the previous year. The budget town meeting approved has $55,000 in reserves but Dias said a lot of that is already going to be needed for other purposes. McEvoy said he looked at other options such as cutting funds from arts or music but ultimately felt cuts there would damage those programs.

 

DiLego added, "given a preference, I think everybody would like the 12 or 13 number students but we don't have that."

 

She encouraged the residents who spoke during open microphone advocating against splitting the third grade to send that message to the Board of Selectmen, who "beat us up" over the budget. 

 

To put McEvoy's plan into place, the School Committee voted to cut off any more school choice for Grade 3. Dias asked to open up two more slots in kindergarten but the committee denied the request.

 

The two kindergarten classes will now have 12 and 13 pupils. School Committee member PJ Pannesco said he didn't think two students would be an extra burden but member Sheila Hebert feared it would mean the class couldn't be put back together in the future.  

 

"We may run into a crunch situation and we would have to combine this grade and it may be too big to do that," Hebert said.