5.0 Important Related Considerations Three key topics—school closures, mergers, and enrollment policies—apply across multiple reorganization options and are important for the community to understand. It is important to understand that, other than Option 1 (maintaining the status quo), all reorganization options will likely require students to be moved into new schools (and possibly buildings). This would need to be done on a space available basis, and could impact all schools, including those not being closed or merged. 5.1 What Do “School Closure” and "School Merger" Mean? 5.1.1 School Closure: If a decision is made to close a school, it means that the school community would no longer exist any more. Students and staff from that school would need to be redistributed to other schools in the district. For the purposes of developing options, 2 methods of identifying schools for possible closure were used: 1. Closure based on the age and condition of the school facilities (Conant) 2. Closure based on preferences expressed by families in the open enrollment process over the last 5 years. (Merriam) Note: Blanchard is an older facility, but is in significantly better condition due to renovations that occurred. Additionally, the regional agreement requires the district to operate at least one school in Boxborough. 5.1.2 School Merger: If a decision is made to merge two schools, it does not simply mean one school disappears. Instead, a thoughtful plan would be developed with feedback from both school communities to build a new, unified school culture. There are three potential approaches to this process: ● Integrate into One Approach: The practices of one school would be absorbed into the practices of the other. ● Create a Combined Approach: The district would take the "best practices" from each of the two school communities to create a blended model. ● Develop a New Approach: A completely new school culture and set of practices would be developed using input from stakeholders from both of the original school communities. For the purposes of developing options, schools were identified for merger based on preferences expressed by families in the open enrollment process over the last 5 years.
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software