SAUGUS — As Saugus gears up for its fast-approaching move to a combined middle-high school building this April, the town’s school board faces a complex challenge: determining the district’s new K-5 grade configurations.
Thursday’s committee meeting proved finding solutions won’t be simple. Held in the wake of an earlier forum — during which potential configurations were discussed by parents, teachers, and administrators — some school board members expressed concern over a new plan they say was created after little consultation with Saugus’s educational leaders.
In an interview with the Item, board member Arthur Grabowski referred to a statement opposing the new configurations read at the forum by several second grade teachers.
“We were elected to be the voice of the people,” Grabowski said. “If this is what the people want and it’s within reason, then we have to do it for them.”
The original plan, proposed after Saugus voted to restructure the district in June 2017, consolidated grades pre-K through second grade at the Veterans Memorial Elementary School, placing grades three through five at Belmonte Middle School.
A more recent proposal suggested second grade will also be included in the move to Belmonte.
“The problem is, it was presented we were going to add on to the Veterans. Then, for some reason, architects said ‘you can’t add on to the school,’” Grabowski said. “I want to know why.”
He added he wants to be sure changes to grade configurations are done with students in mind, rather than because the original proposal “doesn’t fit into an architectural plan.”
“Who do we listen to?” he said.
Superintendent David DeRuosi said Thursday that recent meetings held with parents and teachers on the subject had been “beneficial,” and added current configuration plans are not final.
“We want to do what’s right for the academics,” he said. “Moving forward, we’ll meet, we’ll talk, we’ll discuss, because this truly impacts the second grade.”
Saugus parent Lori Fauci hasn’t made up her mind on what she wants the final grade configurations to be, but said she wants the process going forward to be more collaborative, and for parents to have easier access to relevant information.
“How do you make decisions about the grade configuration without the people who vote on the grade configuration?” she said. “I don’t have a feeling on the grade configuration because not all the information is out there. The exchange of information is sub-par.”
Fauci, who has two elementary-aged children and one child in pre-K, said it simply “makes sense that one hand should know what the other hand is doing.”
“It seems to be backwards in this whole process,” she said. “I think everyone is well-intentioned. I don’t think there’s anything nefarious going on, but I don’t think everyone is on the same page … and the rumor mill is going. I just would prefer to have all the information directly.”
