According to Superintendent Brigid Nease, the Harwood Unified Union School District (HUUSD) enrollment and class placements could be a challenge next school year.
During this time of year the administrative team and district teachers set up class placements for students for the following year. As the HUUSD allows intradistrict choice (IDC), students’ families can decide whether they would like to send their child to their local town school or a neighboring one in the district.
Nease wrote her annual report to the school board on March 25, which outlines problems that are occurring in some schools in the district.
Noted in the report, the HUUSD had 98 students participating in IDC over the past two years. “If you remove the seven now in ninth grade, we have 91 students anticipated to attend a school in the district other than their town of residence,” wrote Nease. Reasons students chose to attend other schools in the district range from geographical location, before- and after-school care and social friend groups among students.
MORETOWN
Moretown student numbers for next year’s kindergarten class are 19. It had been estimated to be 27. According to Nease’s report, the administrative team had three additional IDC requests, which they anticipate denying. The current policy holds kindergarten at 19 resident pupils and then denies choice applicants. At this time the administrative team does not foresee hiring a new kindergarten teacher.
MIDDLE SCHOOL
As of Nease’s report issued on March 25, the administrative team had 22 IDC requests for Valley students who would be assigned to HUMS in grade seven to attend Crossett Brook Middle School in Duxbury. One challenge the admin team faces with a surplus of requests are the number of students allowed in core classes, Nease explained.
“We have multi-age seven/eight teams at CBMS, but classes are broken up by grade level in core academics so seventh-grade math classes cannot exceed 25 for example. Therefore, we can only accept 20 grade seven students. Therefore, two will be denied as well as any other request received from this point until the May 10 deadline,” wrote Nease in her report.
Nease noted that moving 20 students from HUMS will leave lower class sizes in its wake; the admin team suggested moving middle school staff around to accommodate.
FAYSTON
Fayston Elementary is facing its own population difficulties, as there are only two students in third grade (both males) – possibly only one as one family looks to leave the district. Nease wrote that even with full staffing, it will be very difficult to educationally and socially meet the needs of one to two children in a grade.
Kindergarten classes are also very low, topping out at six to seven students. Nease wrote that sometimes the small classroom sizes worked out well, while others did not, based on gender balance and student learning needs. Nease added that if any of the students do not materialize or others do not move into the Fayston school system over the summer, the school could be facing a serious problem. The fifth- and sixth-grade students at Fayston have the high number at 18 and 19.
