Bangor’s superintendent plans to propose a reorganization of fourth through eighth graders next year when the Fairmount School is temporarily closed to remediate asbestos.
The plan would relocate all fourth graders to Mary Snow School, relocate fifth and sixth graders to the James F. Doughty School and relocate seventh and eighth graders to the William S. Cohen School, according to documents shared late Friday in a newsletter to staff and families.
The move comes just over a week after the Fairmount closure was announced. The closure has accelerated existing discussions around reorganizing the city’s schools and maintaining aging buildings amid a funding backlog.
“While I understand that this option reorganizes students in grades four through eight, given all of the factors and our accelerated timeline, it is the only one that we can go with at this point,” Superintendent Marie Robinson said in a video included in the newsletter.
This shift next year will cost about $75,000, according to the newsletter — much cheaper than a $5.6 million option to house Fairmount students and staff in portable classrooms or a $2.6 million option to relocate fifth graders only.
The portable classroom option was the most popular of five ideas shared with families last week, according to survey results in Friday’s newsletter. A third of the 637 respondents preferred that solution.
Meanwhile, a quarter said they wanted to keep fourth graders in their neighborhood schools and move fifth graders to Doughty, and a fifth were in favor of relocating fourth through eighth graders.
The chosen plan would not require any portable classrooms and would offer an “opportunity to pilot new groupings for one year,” according to the newsletter, although the department acknowledged the downside of disrupting four grade levels “in a relatively short window of time.”
The department also considered leasing space elsewhere in the city, but could not find any that would have worked, according to the newsletter.
Robinson said she’ll present the plan to the School Committee for approval at its meeting Wednesday.
“I want to acknowledge that this is a difficult time for the school department. Deferred maintenance on our aging facilities has led to an accelerated timeline for school reorganization. This is a temporary move and the beginning of a longer discussion,” Robinson said, adding that she wants the long-term planning process for future years to be more collaborative with families.
Next year’s plan shares some similarities with a reorganization option suggested in a 2019 study commissioned by the department. Some families have suggested that the crisis moment could be an opportunity to bridge a divide between schools on the east and west sides of the city.
Robinson also said she wants to keep teachers in the same positions next year despite the reorganization.
“Any staffing shifts that occur, I want you to know that every effort is being made and will be made to maintain continuity in teaching and work assignments. I am adamantly in support of maintaining everyone’s position throughout next school year,” she said.
The school department held a budget workshop with the City Council Thursday, where Robinson said the unexpected temporary closure of Fairmount will not change the School Committee’s proposed $65.5 million budget.
The department also plans to hold public listening sessions on May 18, from 5 to 6 p.m. at Doughty and 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Cohen.
