Parents have until Dec. 22 to request a transfer for their middle school-age children.
WILBRAHAM -- The school board is allowing Thornton W. Burgess Middle School students to transfer to Wilbraham Middle School, even though Hampden voters have rejected a formal consolidation plan to send TWB students to WMS.
The current regionalization agreement, approved by both towns over 25 years ago, mandates students in kindergarten through eighth grade to attend schools in their hometowns, with infrequent exceptions granted for a family hardship or students who require special education programs.
The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School Committee has approved a transfer plan that enables TWB students to attend WMS, the school district's larger, better-performing middle school. Similarly, Wilbraham parents can opt to send their kids to TWB, which has been plagued by falling enrollment and test scores in recent years.
On Oct. 24, Wilbraham residents voted to amend the regional school district agreement to allow TWB students to be relocated to WMS for a five-year period beginning next fall, but Hampden voters roundly rejected the idea. Both communities had to approve the merger plan for it to be implemented.
Rather than trying to bolster the academic program at TWB, district officials, citing continuing declining enrollment projections at the Hampden school, have been pushing a plan to send TWB students to Wilbraham to create a more "robust" educational program. The influx of TWB students would have necessitated the construction of a detached modular building to provide four additional classrooms at a cost shared by both towns.
Nick Fyntrilakis, a Hampden resident and member of the Middle School Task Force that recommended merging TWB students with WMS students in Wilbraham, said the schools should be combined for educational and economic reasons. Whether or not consolidation produces savings, the fact remains that district finances are "just not going to permit adequate educational opportunities in both buildings as things currently stand," he told The Republican in late September.
The middle school battle is mainly being waged along town lines, with most Hampden residents supporting the viability of TWB by improving the school and most Wilbraham voters supporting a "unified" middle school to set the stage for a renovated or new regional school in Wilbraham. As the results of the October votes showed, however, the two communities are far from unified on the issue.
In another blow to enrollment at TWB, fifth-graders at the Hampden middle school will be sent to Green Meadows Elementary School beginning in fall 2017, according to Superintendent Albert G. Ganem Jr., who said such a move would be necessary regardless of the outcome of the middle school merger vote.
This year's TWB enrollment is 222 students for grades five through eight. Using this year's enrollment numbers, if fifth grade remains at Green Meadows, then TWB's enrollment will drop to 147 students in grades six through eight in the next school year.
Since the failure of the consolidation plan, district officials claim to have received "multiple requests" from Hampden parents who would like to send their kids to WMS. To accommodate them, the administration has provided transfer information through robocalls and on the district's website.
"We have an idea of some of the people (who want to send their kids to WMS), but there may be more people, or some people may pull back," School Committee Chairwoman Lisa Morace said at a recent board meeting. "We have no idea really of how many people would be making requests for transfers."
Morace said the school board will consider transfer requests on a case-by-case basis and make all decisions during executive session. The deadline for parents to request a transfer in writing is Dec. 22. All letters must be addressed to Ganem and received by 4 p.m.
The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District's regional agreement allows students to attend other district schools with permission from their parents and the School Committee, the latter of which must determine if the transfer is "prudent, can be accomplished, and is in the best interest of the student."
School board member William Bontempi said the disparity in the academic performance of Hampden middle-schoolers and Wilbraham middle-schoolers is "staggering" and must be addressed. "We gotta do something different. These kids (TWB students) are functioning at literally half the level of the WMS kids based on the PPI indicators (Progress and Performance Index)," Bontempi said.
TWB supporters say allowing Hampden middle school students to transfer to WMS and sending TWB fifth-graders to Green Meadows will break TWB, a Hampden institution since 1967.
Hampden resident Rita Vail, speaking at a recent School Committee meeting, insisted that there's nothing unusual about a middle school that serves students in grades five through eight, which is TWB's current configuration. Roughly 30 percent of Massachusetts middle schools follow this academic model, she told the board.
"So TWB, as a configuration, is far from an aberration and has served Hampden well for nearly 25 years within the regional agreement," Vail said. "Why the change now? It looks like it is another attempt -- and I speak for many people -- to cause a significant decrease in TWB's enrollment."
Hampden resident Jeannine Shumway, a strong supporter of keeping TWB alive, said the School Committee's decision to allow Hampden middle-schoolers to transfer to Wilbraham and to send fifth-graders to Green Meadows runs counter to Hampden's town meeting vote in October.
"The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School Committee is not respecting our
wishes to keep Thornton W. Burgess open," she wrote in a letter to the local weekly newspaper that serves both towns. "Instead, they are looking for ways to work around losing."
Shumway claims the ultimate goal of district officials is to get a new regional school in Wilbraham -- a possible scenario if both middle schools are combined on a single regional campus -- and to permanently close TWB.
"I have heard over and over that Wilbraham subsidizes Hampden, that Hampden needs Wilbraham," Shumway said. "Do we really?"
Lisa Sternberg, a former district teacher and TWB supporter, says the school's enrollment will decrease by about 25 percent if fifth-graders are transferred to Green Meadows. Add in potential TWB transfers to WMS, and TWB's enrollment could slip even further, she said.
"How can anyone draw any conclusion other than that the ... administration and School Committee are still on their straight and narrow trail to close TWB," Sternberg said. "Hampden's voters overwhelmingly and conclusively rejected the proffered amendment. Instead, (district officials) are opting, once again, to circle their wagons, ignoring the will of the people to continue to educate their kindergarten through eighth-graders in their hometowns."
According to Sternberg, the decision of the district's leadership to move TWB's fifth-graders to Green Meadows will the disrupt the equilibrium at three of the school district's seven schools -- Green Meadows, TWB and WMS.
Long before both towns voted on the merger issue in October, there was a districtwide call for "healing and goodwill" among all parties affected by the middle school issue. But apparently that was "all talk," Sternberg said, accusing district officials of driving an "even greater wedge" between residents with differing points of view.
"To regain our trust, they must earn that trust with acts of integrity and inclusivity, with consideration for all," Sternberg said.
Built a year apart, the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District's two middle schools are closing in on the half-century mark. Both buildings would require renovations to accommodate an influx of new students if a regional middle school is formed, though only one of the existing buildings would be needed in such a scenario.
To that end, district leaders have been in contact with the Massachusetts School Building Authority -- the quasi-independent government authority that helps fund capital improvement projects at state public schools -- to discuss various options for the middle schools.