NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The School  Committee on Tuesday voted with little discussion to change the school district's organization of instruction. 

 

The school district will have a prekindergarten through Grade 2 early education program and a Grades 3-6 upper elementary program and a Grades 7 through 12 middle and high school level.

 

This was done in two votes as the organization of instruction had not been changed to reflect the move of the middle school to Drury High School nearly a decade ago. 

 

Superintendent Barbara Malkas gave the same presentation provided last week to the Policy subcommittee, which voted to recommend the change. 

 

"We had an overview of the data that you just shared and the community input that you just shared, and a discussion amongst ourselves about the educational benefits that we'll be able to bring to our district by reconfiguring in this way," said Tara Jacobs, chair of the subcommittee. "There's so many benefits that we saw."

 

Committee member Richard Alcombright said there are going to be some logistical things that parents will have to deal with, such as transportation, but everything else he'd heard was positive.

 

"What I've learned from faculty people I've talked, to from administration I've talked with, from some of the colleagues here at the table and from folks out in the community is that the benefits to the students are great," he said. "I have not heard one thing that would not benefit the students." 

 

Mayor Jennifer Macksey, chair of the committee, concurred, said the committee's vote was needed narrow down the options for the design work to come.

 

This means the school building project will focus on how to educate the city's children in the two separate elementary levels.

 

"We are not there yet," said Malkas after the vote. "We are just finishing up our PDP process, which is your programmatic design phase report with the MSBA."

 

The project will be moving into the Massachusetts School Building Authority's preferred schematic phase. The vote was necessary, she said, because "we need to know what we're designing our options towards."

 

That phase won't end until next May, after which community support will be sought to enter into the schematic phase. It will be a year a more before construction begins. 

 

"We have many scenarios that we will need to work through to start to actually think about how we can actually phase it in over time," said Malkas. "Because with our declining enrollment, declining population, we will need to think about consolidating classes at particular grade levels."

 

It's not going to happen Thursday and may not even happen next year, she said, but "it may be in the future beyond that." 

 

The School Building Committee will review building options based on the vote at its meetings in September with the expectation a preferred design will be submitted to the MSBA this fall.