Board OKs grade 6 switch for Berlin and Boylston.

Byline: Michael Kane 

BOYLSTON - Pending a review of the regional school agreement, voters in Boylston and Berlin could be asked to move sixth grade from the elementary schools to Tahanto Regional Middle High School if a new or renovated high school is approved.

The new building project is moving forward regardless of the sixth-grade decision. However, the discussion about creating a true middle school, rather than a junior high school, began under former Superintendent Dr. Marcia Lukon. The idea is that any major change to the district would be best made before the new building is designed. The building project is now being reviewed by the Massachusetts School Building Authority and is expected to go before voters by December.

By a 4-2 vote on Monday, the Regional School Committee approved moving sixth grade if voters approve the building project. All three Boylston members voted in favor of the change, but only Ruth Blandin voted in favor from Berlin.

Berlin members said selectmen in that town are opposed to the change. Blandin, however, asked her fellow committee members to look forward, not at past history, when the two towns had feuded over the school budget and assessments. She compared the committee's role to that of jurists.

"We have to hear all of the evidence," she said. "What (Berlin selectmen) presented to us was history, what they've dealt with in years gone by. I feel like I want to look forward.

"I'm not saying don't use that as a point of reference," she said. "But, if we're always looking backward, we're never going anywhere."

At a meeting in mid-June, Berlin Selectmen Chairman Valery Bradley said she felt like having grades 6 to 12 in the same school was too big a jump.

Selectman Judith Booman said that parents - usually of second- to fifth- graders with no children in Tahanto yet, were mostly worried about a mixed bus. In response to that concern, Superintendent Dr. Brian McDermott acknowledged to the Berlin committee that, while a lot of parents drop students at Tahanto, 70 to 80 percent of Berlin students going to Tahanto do take the bus.

Monday night, Berlin Chairwoman Christine Keefe questioned whether the vote did not need to also be approved by the individual Berlin and Boylston committees.

However, Boylston members Rebecca Dono Healy and Laurence Brenner said the Union 60 Committee, which makes regional-based decisions, has the same slate of officers as the Regional School Committee and argued the vote should be sufficient as passed.

McDermott agreed to check the vote against the regional agreement and get back to the committee.

Administrators and teachers believe the move will be beneficial, McDermott said. Those arguments are expressed in a report on the district's Web site written by sixth-grade teachers and other district representatives after a review of the proposal.

Teachers were opposed to the move at first, McDermott said. But, after seeing how a middle school concept could work with common planning time and curriculum focused on students who are transitioning from child to young adult, they began to favor the move.

Additionally, teachers and administrators at the elementary schools agree that, by the second half of sixth grade, the students are ready for challenges they are not receiving in elementary school.

Regardless, much work is now needed to sell the idea to voters, McDermott said. Berlin member Nicole McKoon noted her vote is not a reflection of the selectmen's opposition, but of her feelings that not enough is known about the benefits of moving sixth grade to Tahanto.

Many questions cannot be answered right now because the educational program is being reviewed to better address the social and academic needs of a unique age group, McDermott said.

Curriculum changes will be made, whether grade 6 moves to Tahanto or not, he said.

"It would be a lot easier to do if the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade were all together," McDermott said. "Regardless of whether they are together or not, we have to work on that. This is wonderful collection of ages that we can do so much with."

Donna Roberson contributed to this report.