Nahant to split 4th grade once again

NAHANT – Superintendent Phil Devaux called it a highly-anticipated moment for the Johnson School community when he announced that the fourth-grade class will no longer need to be consolidated.Devaux decided in March to merge the two fourth grade classes into one in order to free up a teacher to cover the large incoming second-grade class after a retiring teacher was not replaced. But since then, an unusual number of families with second-grade students moved out of town, making for a much smaller class.In the fall, there will continue to be two fourth-grade classes and one second-grade class, the way it was before, according to committee Chairman Lissa Keane.Devaux called the decision “a predictable one” because by August the two second-grade classes each had enrollment in the single digits. “Grade 2, where we thought we had a low number of students anyway, has continued to drop precipitously,” he said at Tuesday?s School Committee meeting.He joked that the topic was so hot in town this summer that in announcing his decision he was only catching up with gossip.?We want to catch up to those people on the beach who are helping us to make our decisions,” he said with a smile.