I am writing to urge residents of Amherst to strongly encourage their Town Meeting members to vote “yes” at the special Town Meeting on Jan. 30.
A “yes” vote would approve an early childhood center at Crocker Farm Elementary and build two new co-located schools for all Amherst elementary students in Grades 2-6 at the Wildwood Elementary site. If you don’t know who your Town Meeting members are and how they voted, please check out amherstma.gov.
I have a unique perspective as a parent of three children who attended prekindergarten at Crocker Farm and kindergarten through sixth grade at Wildwood. I am also a reading specialist and literacy coach at Plains School in South Hadley. Plains is a prekindergarten through Grade 1 school — precisely what is proposed for Crocker Farm in Amherst — in a beautiful, environmentally friendly building, filled with natural light, and updated educational technology. It was recently constructed with a similar grant from the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
In November, a majority of Amherst residents voted to accept $34 million dollars from the state to replace ailing Wildwood and Fort River. As of now, Amherst Town Meeting has voted down this significant offer of money without any guarantee of receiving these funds in the future. Without this “yes” vote at Town Meeting, we need to go back to the drawing board and wait in line — for perhaps another decade or more — to rebuild our decaying and obsolete schools.
I believe an early childhood center, such as the one being proposed at Crocker Farm, plus the new co-located school buildings at the Wildwood site for Grades 2-6, serves our students better than a K-6 model. I invite any Amherst Town Meeting member in doubt to contact me for a tour of Plains School in South Hadley. If you join me on this tour, you will notice that everything from the furniture in the library to the equipment on the playground is geared toward young children, so the environment feels accessible, safe and welcoming. The beauty of an early childhood school is that professionals can focus and collaborate on delivering the most developmentally appropriate education for young children.
Some worry about too many transitions. Keep in mind, however, that most prekindergarten students must already transition from Crocker Farm or other preschools to Wildwood and Fort River.
In South Hadley, the transition to a new school in second grade seems perfectly normal because all children move together. We have a “Step-Up Day” that celebrates with warmth and enthusiasm the children’s move to the next school. The students feel genuinely excited and ready to make the change. By then they have outgrown the little furniture and are ready to be welcomed by a new team of experts who have geared the learning environment to this age group.
I strongly believe that the proposed Amherst model, like the configuration in South Hadley, is much more fair. First, with all of the town’s students in the same grade in the same school, it is much easier to make class sizes equal. This has not always been the case in the Amherst elementary schools, with some schools having more children in the average classroom than others.
Second, math and reading specialists can better focus their instruction to support the most struggling students when they are selecting from the entire population of students at a particular grade level. Under the current Amherst system, each school specialist works with the lowest achieving students at each school. If one school has a lot more struggling students, it can be challenging to address their needs in the most effective way.
Third, it is much more productive to offer targeted services and professional development when students and teachers at the same grade levels are housed in the same building. There is no substitute for daily face-to-face interactions to collaborate on curriculum and coordinate services to students with a team of teachers who have the knowledge and expertise to meet their academic and developmental needs.
Last but not least, we have a myth of neighborhood schools in Amherst. The reality is that many of our low-income students and special education students are bused into schools outside their neighborhoods. The argument about neighborhood schools and equity falls flat when it is apparent that many children would be much better served with a centralized, community school rather than with the status quo.
Please encourage your Town Meeting members to vote “yes,” for a brighter future for our students and our town.
Taryn LaRaja, of Amherst, is a parent of three children and former Town Meeting member from Precinct 9. She has taught students in kindergarten through third grade and is a reading specialist and literacy coach at Plains School in South Hadley. You may contact her at tlaraja@gmail.com.
