$10,000 School Study Echoes Earlier Plan

     A new and extensive study of the Mashpee School Department’s school building usage suggests that everything is fine just the way it is.
     The New England School Development Council (NESDEC) carried out the $10,000 study to more fully answer the question: is there a better way to utilize the district’s schools? That question arose out of the Mashpee High School reorganization this past spring, when grades seven and eight were split off into the Mashpee Middle School.
     School officials have long expressed a desire to create a separate, stronger identify for grades seven and eight, but felt that effort was impeded by the fact the students shared the MHS building with older students.
     The MMS has its own administrative structure and operates mostly independently of the high school, though there is still some unavoidable overlap, namely in the use of shared areas such as the cafeteria, gymnasium, and auditorium.
     As part of this project, a special 15-member school restructuring feasibility committee was assembled to review building use. The committee’s goal: to see if there was an acceptable alternative configuration that removed middle schoolers from the high school.
     The committee presented three scenarios, and its preference was to keep all the students where they are, with preschoolers through second graders at the K.C. Coombs School, grades three through six at the Quashnet School, and grades seven through 12 at the MHS building.
     The other two scenarios called for shifting preschoolers and kindergarten students over to MHS, and a districtwide shifting of grades that would have moved grades seven and eight into the Quashnet School.
     The three NESDEC recommendations, presented to the Mashpee School Committee Wednesday by Margery T. Clark and John H. Kennedy, mirrored the restructuring feasibility committee’s recommendations almost exactly.
     The four-person NESDEC study team, which included Ms. Clark and Mr. Kennedy, visited all three schools and sifted through years of enrollment data to support its recommendations. Mr. Kennedy noted that the Mashpee district hit its population peak of 2,250 in the 2000-2001 school year, which he said was largely the result of the town’s building boom.
     In the years immediately preceding the population peak, Mashpee added several new single- and mutli-family homes, which drew more families with children into the district, Mr. Kennedy said.
     The student population was 2,055 during the 2007-2008 school year, and Mr. Kennedy said enrollment projections indicate that the district will not exceed 2,000 students again. Enrollment projections for the next 10 years show that the student population will hit a low of 1,876 in the 2016-2017 school year before climbing only slightly the following year.
     This means that the three schools will effectively gain space to operate in. Part of NESDEC’s 90-minute presentation included a review of the available school facilities and current usage levels, and that review indicated that all three schools are operating just at capacity.
     The “Planned Operating Capacity” (POC) for each building was calculated by determining how many “interchangeable” classrooms each one had. Interchangeable classrooms were defined as rooms that could be used for general instruction for any core subject, whereas other areas were defined as “dedicated” space. That included areas such as gymnasiums, cafeterias, and libraries, and rooms for specific subjects such as art, music, science, or special education services.
     Each school’s POC was compared to its “Current Operating Capacity” (COC), which takes into account the number of students occupying each instructional space. Throughout the district, each school’s POC and COC matched perfectly.
     The Coombs school’s POC and COC were 420 (21 interchangeable classrooms, each holding an average of 20 students). However, this did not include children in preschool, and if those classrooms were to be turned over for use by older students, the POC would increase to 500.
     At the Quashnet School, the POC and COC were 550 (25 classrooms with 22 students each). Six classrooms were not counted in these totals as they were currently dedicated for other uses, including by the Head Start program and the Cape Cod Collaborative. Were those classrooms made available to the general population, the POC would increased to 682.
     Despite operating as separate entities, the Mashpee Middle and High schools were counted as a single structure for this report, and the POC and COC for the building was 1,225. The report did not provide a breakdown by classroom and students per classroom.
     NESDEC presented the school committee with the three strongest options, the first of which would realign the grades so one through four were at the Coombs school, five through eight were at the Quashnet School, and nine through 12 were in the high school along with preschoolers.
     This scenario would achieve the desired physical separation of grades seven and eight from the high schoolers, while providing opportunities for greater curriculum coordination between the lower grades. However, this layout would lead to overcrowding at the Coombs school and would strain that facility’s resources and infrastructure.
     It would also demand extensive renovations to accommodate the needs of older students at the Quashnet School and the preschoolers and kindergarteners at the high school. The projected cost of making these adjustments: between $435,000 and $645,000.
     The similar option two comes with many of the same benefits and drawbacks, and the very same price tag. Option two would still shift preschool and kindergarten students to the high school, but would put only grades one through three at the Coombs school, with grades four through eight at the Quashnet School.
     As a result, the Quashnet School would experience slight overcrowding.
     Option three was deemed the most equitable in terms of balancing needs with resources, though NESDEC did not formally endorse any of the plans. Option three would keep every grade right where it is, which does not address the middle school/high school separation issues.
     However, the situation could be partially mitigated at a cost of $110,000 to $130,000, which would cover renovations to the gym’s locker room area to create separate spaces for the two grade ranges, and the addition of a dedicated nurse’s station in the middle school.
     Committee member Ralph J. Marcelli, one of the committee’s more vocal supporters of full middle school/high school separation, asked Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Clark for their opinions on an “ideal configuration” for the high school. Mr. Kennedy again did not endorse a particular plan, but did note that the high school building was designed to handle a large number of students in the grade range it currently houses.
     He added that there is no significant trend in education supporting integration of grades seven and eight with high schools, nor supporting separation of the grades; each approach is dictated by a particular community’s needs, resources, and preferences.
     Ms. Clark added that the most significant factor to consider is class size; many studies have shown that learning is enhanced when classroom sizes are kept small, which allows teachers to provide more individualized attention.
     A final, more detailed study from NESDEC is forthcoming.