Ford split jolts Lynn meet

LYNN – Plans to try and sustain a K-8 format at the Ford School despite having to close the middle school annex building were scrapped by the School Committee Thursday night, relegating the 221 students in grades 6-8 back to their neighborhood schools.Superintendent Catherine Latham proposed closing the Ford School Annex on Bennett Street in the first draft of her Fiscal Year 2010 budget last week, but plan-ned on keeping most of those students at the school’s main building on Hollingsworth Street.After looking at the situation more closely, Latham informed the committee Thursday that the main building simply did not have enough space to legally house the transferred students next year.As a result, the 221 students will be displaced between Breed, Marshall and Pickering middle schools, depending on what district they live in. Latham said the move would free up an additional $453,000 that would go to those three schools in the form of teachers and other support for the additional students.Latham also said the Ford will likely sacrifice one vice principal to a middle school that is short one VP position.In addition, some students in grades K-5 will also be transferred to their district schools, but that number is yet to be determined.As parents and students, many of whom held signs supporting the school, looked on, the School Committee reluctantly voted 5-2 Thursday to allow Latham to revise the budget to include the changes at Ford.Latham presented the committee with three scenarios, the first, and the one that ultimately passed, converted the school back to a K-5 and displaced all middle school students.Other options included moving the middle school students to the vacant Fallon School on Robinson Street and redistricting the area to include fewer total students at Ford, but keeping a K-8 format.The move to Fallon was ultimately shot down when it was determined that the money saved would be a minimal difference from remaining at the annex, and the idea of redistricting the school would have forced the department to shrink the Ford’s territory to a point where some students who lived close enough to see the school out of their windows would have been forced to go elsewhere.”If we did that (redistricting) district lines would be re-drawn, and it would be a very small area, essentially just the streets at the top of that hill,” said Latham. “All but 56 of the middle schoolers would need to be sent to a different school and we are looking at added transportation costs and the costs of adding 10-12 teachers to other schools.”Ford School Principal Claire Crane had been hopeful that she could keep the city’s only K-8 school in tact by adding a portable classroom, but Business Administrator Kevin McHugh told the committee that aside from the expenses that could be over $200,000, designing the layout and waiting for bids would push the project beyond the start of school in September.A plan to move the computer lab, refinish the basement and knock down walls was also discussed, but it was determined that the square footage of the classrooms created by those moves would fall below state requirements by almost half.The state requires rooms of 900 to 1,000 square feet for the number of students the Ford has, and the revised rooms would be just over 500 square feet.School Committee members were very reluctant to eliminate the K-8, noting its success on MCAS scores and in the Ford community.”This is more than just a school, there are after-school programs, there are night programs for parents, it is a whole different concept,” said Committee member Donna Coppola, who has been critical of the annex closing. “There is nothing wrong with a K-8. It is something different in our system, but it is not something we should lose.”Committee member Jeff Newhall agreed that the closure hurts, but took offense to the notion that Ford students would not receive a good education at the city’s additional three middle schools.”As bad as this is, we’ve close