Newfound considers moving fifth grade to middle school

BRISTOL — Anticipating the need for change once the Newfound Area School District shrinks to a four-town cooperative, school board members have formed a committee to look into whether fifth grade classes should return to the middle school. The board, which currently has seven members, also is preparing a warrant article that would create a five-member school board to avoid tie votes once it loses three members to the newly formed Pasquaney School District.

In other business, the school board appointed Jennifer Larochelle of Hebron to serve on its Wellness Committee, and adopted a new inclement weather policy.

Once the Pasquaney School District begins operations on July 1, 2025, the preschool program currently taking place at the Bridgewater-Hebron Village School, licensed to provide special education and early intervention for 3- and 4-year-olds within the Newfound district, will have to relocated to another school within School Administrative Unit 4. That is likely to create space problems in the elementary schools, which might be alleviated if fifth graders move to Newfound Memorial Middle School which, during its early years, served grades 5-8.

The new study committee is charged with looking into how grade 5 can be integrated back into the middle school without disrupting the children’s educations.

Kimberly Bliss, vice chair of the Newfound board and member of the Restructuring Committee, has said, “I don’t want to put an undue burden on the teachers and also for our parents. We’ve received emails from parents in the community that are concerned about moving fifth graders to the middle school, and that’s rightfully so. It’s different. It’s not what we’re used to; hasn’t been that way for 20 years, 24 years.”

In forming the Fifth Grade Study Committee, the board appointed Chair Melissa Suckling; middle school Principal Chris Ulrich; Danbury Elementary School Principal Jessica Pine; Facilities Director Armand Gerard; fifth grade teacher Dori Higgins of Bristol Elementary School as teacher/staff representative; middle school social studies teacher Jason Jenkins; Brittany Galvin of Bristol, a parent and second-grade teacher at Danbury Elementary; Kimberly MacLean, a parent and paraprofessional at Danbury Elementary; Erin Ingemudsen of New Hampton, a parent and math intervention teacher at the middle school; and community representatives Michelle Lang of New Hampton, Leo Vasquez of Alexandria, and Kendra Simpson of Bristol.

The board voted to reactivate its Wellness Committee, which had been placed on hold following citizens’ complaints about its recommendation to expand the district’s focus on health services for students. The opposition led to revelations about the committee’s lack of structure and oversight, failure to keep minutes of its meetings, and other irregularities.

Suckling said there is a legal requirement in the district’s food contract for the Wellness Committee to meet three times a year. The committee had met once before being placed on hold, but must meet twice more this year, she said. Larochelle, whose committee assignments are few because as a representative from a seceding town she is unable to contribute to policies extending into next year, volunteered to serve on the Wellness Committee.

The school board also revised its Inclement Weather Policy, which had been in effect since the pandemic and required middle and high school students to engage in remote learning on days when snow or ice storms prevented in-person attendance.

Superintendent Paul Hoiriis explained a review of how the policy worked last year indicated widespread support for continuing to avoid “snow days” by having students work on prepared assignments so they could continue learning regardless of the weather.

“The elementary school students were working on assignments that were made available by the teachers ahead of time,” Hoiriis said, while “in the middle and high school, students were being required to jump online into a remote learning situation; where it looks like the committee is now recommending that it is the same for all three levels, that assignments are provided ahead of time.”

During public comment after the board approved the change, family and consumer science teacher Sarah Ohl offered the opinion that, while it is easy for elementary school teachers to create work assignments in advance, “at the high school level, we usually teach the curriculum we would have taught when we were in school, and so that’s going to be a big change.

"Having to come up with pre-printed worksheets to send home with students, or we might not know when the inclement weather day is coming, so I think that teachers need to give some support and discussion about how it’s going to be rolled out in the middle school and the high school, so that we can be prepared for it."

Last month, the board approved on first reading a change in the district’s lactation policy that replaced the commonly used term “nursing mothers” with “persons with lactation needs” — a change in language recommended by the New Hampshire School Boards Association. Two board members and people in the audience had objected to the change, but they were unsuccessful in their attempts to preserve the original terminology.

At the Nov. 12 meeting, New Hampton board member Francine Wendelboe said she would vote against the collection of policies submitted for second read if that policy were not removed from the motion. She also pointed out the proposed policy was inconsistent in making the changes, with several references to “nursing mothers” remaining in the document.

After reviewing the inconsistencies, the board voted to send that policy back to committee for discussion and revision.

At the beginning of the meeting, Hoiriis introduced Armand Gerard, a former Plymouth selectboard member who served as facilities director and property manager elsewhere and was hired two weeks ago as Newfound’s facilities director after the former director resigned a few weeks into the job.

“I bring a lot of years of experience for this position,” Gerard said. “I have a pretty good collaborative mindset when it comes to community, schools, budgets, and municipalities as well. It’s very challenging, but it’s pretty rewarding as well. So I’m very excited about about joining this team, and my hope is this will be it until I retire.”