NAHANT — The School Committee voted unanimously to send the Johnson School’s incoming sixth-grade class to Swampscott Middle School at a rate of $16,897.70 per student for the 2023-24 school year at a special meeting Tuesday night.
School Committee Chair Patricia Karras amended the pending memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two school districts to earmark an estimated $84,338 in tuition to Swampscott Middle School, and to provide Nahant with the right to extend the agreement into the 2024-25 school year.
“There are some negotiating terms that I would have to go back to Swampscott with,” said Karras. “There will be significant cuts made [in Swampscott] and cuts to the middle school, so I would like this tuition to be put toward the middle school.”
The Johnson School currently sends its seventh through 12th-grade students to Swampscott for an annual per-student tuition fee. Nahant Public Schools paid Swampscott Public Schools $1,607,137 this year to send its middle and high-school students to Swampscott.
This year, the Johnson School’s current fifth-grade class comprises only five students, and there are just seven students in its fourth-grade class. The uniquely small class sizes prompted negotiations between the Swampscott and Nahant school committees to include Johnson’s rising sixth-grade, and possibly fifth-grade, classes in the districts’ five-year agreement.
Under the current MOU, the tuition of any fifth or sixth-grade Nahant students enrolled to attend classes in Swampscott after October 3, 2023 would be charged in the next five-year contract.
Last Thursday, the Swampscott School Committee agreed to the per-pupil rate of $16,897.70 — a significant decrease from the starting rate of $19,119 — for student hosting spread throughout the districts’ current five-year contract, which is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2026.
On Tuesday, members debated between sending the incoming sixth-grade class to Swampscott, sending both the fifth and sixth-grade classes, or keeping the Johnson School classes separate and hiring another teacher to accommodate the smaller class sizes.
The committee ultimately agreed to the first option, as it allows the sixth-grade class to learn in a larger class setting without sending fifth-grade students to middle school too early.
“It would be a shock for them,” said School Committee Member Beth Anderson. “There’s a significant difference developmentally between 10 (years old) and 11 (years old).”
Before voting, Karras stressed that the MOU stood as a temporary solution due to irregularly low class sizes, and would not fundamentally alter the Johnson School’s structure from kindergarten through sixth grade.
“This is short-term only. If anything were to ever happen long-term, it would be a community-wide decision,” she said.
The Swampscott School Committee will meet June 8 to discuss the terms of the MOU. If it votes not to accept Nahant’s conditions, Karras said the district will hire another teacher and work to keep the fifth and sixth-grade classes separate at Johnson.
Nahant Superintendent of Schools Tony Pierantozzi said he was pleased with the School Committee’s vote. He said he thinks it will foster the best possible learning environment — of the options discussed — for the small sixth-grade class. He also thanked the Swampscott School Committee and Swampscott Superintendent of Schools Pamela Angelakis for their work “in the best interest of the students.”
“I am extremely pleased that the School Committee has voted in the best interest of the very few sixth-graders that we will have next year to place them in a position where they would have a broader circle of students than they would if they stayed in Nahant,” Pierantozzi said.
