Remote, hybrid, in-person — welcome to the language spoken by anyone involved in education in the age of COVID-19. Education is tough enough to provide children during a pandemic and, in Saugus, the challenge is magnified by the town’s plan to overhaul how local students are taught and where they are taught.
The plan’s first phase — building a combined high school and middle school — is finished and town residents can take pride in Saugus’ newest public building. With the state-of-the-art secondary education complex completed, the focus now shifts to reconfiguring primary education in Saugus.
Plans call for converting the former Belmonte Middle School and Veterans Memorial Elementary School to educate pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students in classrooms outfitted with 21st century technology and learning spaces.
Town educators from School Superintendent David DeRuosi down have set an ambitious timeline for the conversion plan. After voting in June to decommission Belmonte as a middle school, the Saugus School Committee boldly endorsed September 2021 as the goal for reopening Belmonte as a repurposed school focused on elementary education.
Committee Vice Chair Ryan Fisher went as far as to say: “I’m looking forward to September 2021 when every school in the district is fully renovated for these kids.”
Here’s hoping his expectations are met. Saugus can realize the ambition voters embraced in 2017 when they approved a $185 million plan to revamp local education.
Worrisome test scores, aging buildings and DeRuosi’s unrelenting vision of excellence motivated Saugus elected officials to take aim at academic excellence.
The big red letters spelling out “Saugus” in front of the new high school-middle school perfectly encapsulate the exciting educational journey the town has embarked on.
We hope it will not be a journey that sputters and stalls out because COVID-19 forces a reorientation of educational priorities. It is important for the town to get moving on the Belmonte and Veteran’s projects.
Centralizing primary education in Belmonte and Veteran’s and eventually bidding farewell to the outdated Lynnhurst, Oaklandvale and Waybright schools is the final step in allowing Saugus to take a big step forward into 21st century education.
It’s tempting to view the pandemic’s impact on public education as a setback that communities will struggle to overcome. If Saugus stays the course and methodically turns the $185 million school reconfiguration plan into reality, then COVID-19 will be a bump on the road to an academic transformation that will serve the town for decades and generations to come.
