Mary Byrne
The district reconfiguration is in its final stages, and work for the last implementation phase — moving the fourth grade into the Chenery Upper Elementary School this fall — is well underway.
“I’m really excited about it,” said Assistant Superintendent Lucia Sullivan. “I know it’s anxiety-provoking because there are a lot of unknowns.”
When Belmont built the new high school, concerns about crowding at the younger levels came up, Sullivan said. Building the new middle school on the same campus mitigated some of those concerns because it created efficiency in resource sharing. Officials determined that reconfiguring the distribution of students at the then-Chenery Middle School would further alleviate the overcrowding, so the seventh- and eighth-grade levels moved to the Belmont Middle School and High School Campus, leaving just the fifth- and sixth-graders at Chenery.
“Doing that, moving the seventh and eighth grade up there, created a lot of space at Chenery, which had 1,600 kids,” Sullivan said.
This fall, the fourth-grade level will be added to what’s now known as the Chenery Upper Elementary (CUE) School. The current 304 third graders will move from their neighborhood schools and start fourth grade at Chenery. With that move will come 14 teachers and a handful of specialists.
“Fourth grade is really an instructional shift,” Sullivan said. Kindergarten through third grade “is really learning the primary skills and competencies; the fourth grade is independent application. … By fourth grade, you’re able to start to do things independently. You take on a lot more responsibility.”
The district designed the reconfiguration to be budget-neutral. Sullivan said some former positions, including an assistant principal at the school, may be restored.
Sullivan said that in addition to creating more breathing room at the elementary level, the additional space opens up the opportunity to expand in-house special education programs.
“That’s a really exciting side-impact,” she said. “Not having space — even though it’s a technical challenge — it’s a very real challenge.”
According to Sullivan, a parent advisory group has helped guide the reconfiguration process. The group has met monthly with administrators, offering an opportunity for information sharing and feedback.
“We met a lot with the staff, both the fourth-grade teachers and the Chenery staff,” she said. “So we’ve had a series of culture-building days … and sort of did a visioning process, imagining how the building could be different, and the structure.”
As part of the reconfiguration process, Chenery will operate under a two-house model, with half the fourth–, fifth-, and sixth-grade classrooms on one floor and the balance on the second. Students will start and end their time at Chenery on the same floor to create some degree of familiarity with students and teachers.
“They’ll both sort of function as a smaller school within a school,” Sullivan said. “Ideally, they’ll have their own assistant principal to be an administrator.”
Tours
Sullivan said a series of events for parents will take place this spring. The new principal, Laura Smith, has also organized tours for the incoming students, which will be led by current Chenery students.
“We also received a [social-emotional learning] grant, and we’re going to be offering the responsive classroom, which is a child-centered approach to how you set up a classroom in a collaborative manner with kids to create a shared learning space that is highly empathetic in response to the needs of children,” Sullivan said. “More than 50 staff have signed up. We’re really looking forward to that opportunity to galvanize the new staff and have them all work together as a faculty on this shared enterprise.”
Changing Feel
Other changes are being made, including the addition of a less intensive lunchtime recess and homework policy. Teachers will have access to all the necessary furniture and, ideally, new rugs for those who need them.
“I’m really excited about the direction the building is going in,” Sullivan said. “It had always been a middle school with an identity … that really shifted toward the older kids, because middle school is traditionally 6,7,8. The changes that have already been made by Barbara O’Brien, the current interim principal, have really shifted things.”
After-School Programming to Expand with Reconfiguration
Andrew Mountford, executive director of the Belmont After School Enrichment Collaborative (BASEC), said the collaborative has been working over the past year to ensure it can meet the community’s needs in light of the reconfiguration.
The current BASEC program at Chenery is licensed for 230 students per day and typically serves around 200 students.
“We are anticipating that our program will grow to between 330 – 360 students per day when fourth graders transition to the CUE,” Mountford said in an email to The Voice. “BPS has understood our needs in this expansion from the beginning and has already helped us through the process of identifying new program spaces and installing equipment that will help us meet the state licensing requirements for that larger capacity.”
BASEC will be part of a virtual event Wednesday, May 29, hosted by Belmont Public Schools, to introduce its Sports, STEM, and Arts programs as well as its new program, Environmental Science. Registration for the upcoming school year begins May 9.
“At BASEC, we’re really thrilled by the reconfiguration in general and look forward to being a part of an upper elementary school that is aligned with the developmental needs of this age demographic,” Mountford wrote. “We think it’s a change that will be overwhelmingly positive for students, and we’re excited about how thoughtfully it’s being implemented from all parts of the school (and after school!) day.”
