LINCOLN, Maine — Fourth-graders at Ella P. Burr School will move to Mattanawcook Junior High School next school year to get them out of portable classrooms, officials said Monday.
The move, Superintendent Keith Laser said, will take advantage of four empty classrooms at the junior high and help alleviate somewhat crowded conditions at Ella Burr, which houses grades pre-kindergarten to fourth grade and a program for four-year-olds.
“It’s more ideal for them to be in a permanent setting, regular classrooms inside a building instead of being outside in the portable classrooms,” said Katie Clay, a Lincoln representative to the RSU 67 Board of Directors, which serves Chester, Lincoln and Mattawamkeag.
“Right now when they have to go to gym, they have to put their coats on,” Clay added.
The board informally agreed to the move on Dec. 17. No vote was required, board Chairwoman Rebecca Hanscom said. Board members said the students would feel more a part of their institution with the move.
Some parents of fourth-graders have expressed concerns that their children would be mixing with eighth-graders or other older students at the junior high, which serves grades five through eight. But the fourth-grade classrooms are in the wing housing fifth-graders, so the students will stay within their appropriate age group, Hanscom said.
“It will be a controlled environment in which they will be comfortable,” Hanscom said.
Laser and junior high Principal Christopher Cowing have met with parents to assuage their concerns. Hanscom encouraged any parent with questions or issues regarding the move to contact them. Cowing will also hold an informational meeting with parents to discuss the move, but no date has been set, Laser said.
The move is also being facilitated by a decline in the number of students at RSU 67 schools that has occurred over several years, Laser and Clay said.
Enrollment in state public schools has dropped steadily since the 2006-07 fiscal year, according to statistics compiled by the Maine Department of Education. Maine schools had 199,467 students that year, according to maine.gov/doe.
They had 184,367 in the 2013-14 fiscal year, which ended June 30. Lincoln schools had 1,097 that year, down from 1,209 in the 2009-10 fiscal year, according to the latest statistics available at the DOE website devoted to RSU 67.
The numbers do show at least one encouraging trend, however — the number of four-year-olds at the school system has increased since 2009 from 46 to 64 in 2013-14. Kindergarteners have increased over that time period from 79 to 89. The number of fourth-graders over that time period has decreased from 80 to 71.