PEABODY — A School Committee meeting Tuesday night discussed the matter of redistricting neighborhoods in order to lessen the strain on the newly renovated Center School set to re-open in August.
This followed last Wednesday’s School Committee Redistricting ad Hoc Subcommittee meeting, where they voted to recommend the Tammie Lane, Loris Road, and Reynolds Road neighborhoods be moved to the Carroll School and the Keys Drive and Essex Drive neighborhoods be moved to the McCarthy School.
After a presentation led by superintendent Dr. Josh Vadala and comments from both the public and committee members, both of these proposed district changes passed with a four-to-one vote from the School Committee, the only “no” vote coming from committee member Beverley Griffin Dunne.
“I will speak of my own frustration. Redistricting is a difficult topic. We’re getting information now about one school and two to three neighborhoods. This is what we should’ve been talking about at the School Committee for at least three years,” Griffin Dunne said. “I want ongoing discussions from this point on about class sizes… We lost the trust, you lost my trust, Dr. Vadala.”
“We’ll do everything that we can to do this, but we have all the data you want. I’ve asked several times for a list of questions,” he responded. “I’m here to present anything that you need. I’ve done that for five years, and I’ll continue to do that for as long as I’m here.”
The rest of the committee echoed the sentiment of how difficult redistricting is for families, but also reiterated the importance of making this change so the Center School isn’t overcrowded.
“I have been very hesitant and, in fact, sometimes I didn’t want to discuss redistricting. I did feel because of some equity issues and overcrowding in the Center and the South, I felt there needed to be a movement to the West Peabody schools,” Mayor Ted Bettencourt said. “This isn’t a surprise to me in the sense that we’re moving students west to take away some of the overcrowded and capacity issues we’ve had on the south and east sides of Peabody.”
During a period of public comment, parents expressed the disconnect they’ve felt between the administration and families who they say have been left in the dark on matters of re-districting.
“Last week’s redistricting meeting, there was a lot of information shared that was left out of the community meetings… they would’ve made different decisions about the last year if they had known about the redistricting,” Michelle Ryan said. “Going forward, it would be really nice if people on this committee tried to be more transparent for real… This was handled really, really badly.”
Other Center School parents brought up a slew of issues they’ve had with the redistricting process, including the splitting up of neighborhoods, overpopulation at the South School, and a need for more information before a decision is made about where their children will be going next year.
“We need to have more of a gameplan and, as discussed before we feel that it wasn’t as transparent… for decision making, we need to be transparent about what’s the gameplan if we have, let’s say, 60 fifth graders say ‘we want to come back’,” Kristen Green said. “What are you going to do with the pre-school counts? How does that affect other grades? We may need to have another meeting where we iron all of this out. It’s not black and white, there’s a lot of grey lines.”
As said throughout the process, Vadala emphasized the importance of working with families individually if they need it, reiterating how every Center School student will be able to return in the fall or stay at their current school if they wish.
“This is a big change for one school. It is a change for the others as well,” Griffin Dunne said. “And I think that in fairness to all the people who have children at the elementary schools, they really should know what the plan is if you’re going to have to redistrict any other neighborhoods in the school system.”
