AMHERST — Children entering sixth grade at Amherst’s public schools will have their classes at the Amherst Regional Middle School beginning in the fall of 2023.
The Amherst School Committee Tuesday voted 4-0, with member Heather Lord absent, to adopt a recommendation by Superintendent Michael Morris to have sixth graders — students who are currently in fourth grade at Crocker Farm, Fort River and Wildwood elementary schools — move to the middle school for the 2023-2024 school year.
“The fact that we know we can do it responsibly pushes it over the edge for me,” said committee member Peter Demling.
Demling said that the responsible approach will include significant outreach to families, students and staff affected by the move to a building that’s already what he describes as an “amazing place” with “life-changing teachers.”
“To have an opportunity to take something that already has great bones and has great staff and enhance it… is pretty exciting,” Demling said.
Committee member Kerry Spitzer said she is excited that sixth graders might have new opportunities, including the possibility of earlier access to world languages, sports and theater.
Before the move can be finalized, the Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee, which has representatives from Amherst, Leverett, Pelham and Shutesbury, will have to take a similar vote, and school officials will begin a process that includes developing a curriculum and transition plan, formalizing an agreement between the Amherst public schools and the regional entity that owns the building, and making physical improvements to the middle school to accommodate the new classes.
The vote follows a recommendation from Superintendent Michael Morris to move sixth graders to the middle school so that a new school building can replace both the aging Fort River and Wildwood schools. The only plan supported by the Massachusetts School Building Authority, to have both those buildings replaced or renovated by the 2026 school year, requires a 575-student school with a K-5 model.
Morris said the stakes are high, as the only K-6 model the state agency will support is a 320-student building at the current Fort River site. That would mean that as Fort River gets fixed or rebuilt, Wildwood students and teachers would remain in a deficient building, with limited natural light and poor air circulation, into the 2030s.
“These buildings won’t make it,” Morris said of Fort River and Wildwood.
Morris is confident that the sixth grade move could also help revitalize middle school education. The building has housed only seventh and eighth graders in since ninth graders moved to an expanded high school several years ago.
School committees in Pelham, Leverett and Shutesbury would have to take similar votes if sixth graders in those towns are to make a similar move to the middle school.
All three Amherst elementary school principals said their buildings are facing space constraints, some due to precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic that have included creating larger classrooms. In some cases, art and music teachers have been displaced.
Wildwood Principal Nick Yaffe said that specialists not having their own classroom, but instead going room to room using a mobile cart, is not ideal.
“Art on a cart is really tough,” Yaffe said.
Fort River Principal Michelle Hernandez said her building will continue to need additional classrooms for the continued expansion of the dual-language Caminantes program.
While Crocker Farm was renovated more recently, it too is increasingly crowded.
“We’re pretty filled to the brim. We’re pretty tight,” said Principal Derek Shea.
Morris acknowledged that the move of the sixth graders will be similar to the challenges the district faced when Mark’s Meadow Elementary School closed at the end of the 2009-2010 school year. That entailed transitioning students and staff to the other buildings.
Yaffe, who was the principal at Mark’s Meadow for its final 6½ years, said he is feeling the same level of excitement as at that time but observes that he will miss colleagues who will be teaching in a different building.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
