Wayland school officials will spend the next few weeks reviewing a proposal by Superintendent Paul Stein that calls for reconfiguring the town’s three elementary schools to accommodate students in kindergarten through Grade 5.
Stein made the recommendation last month after reviewing nearly 18 months worth of information gathered by the Elementary Building Use Task Force he appointed in the fall of 2012.
His recommendation calls for placing two classes of each grade at Loker School, three classes of each grade at Happy Hollow School, and four of each at Claypit Hill School. Currently, only kindergartners attend Loker School, while the other two schools hold grades 1 through 5.
Stein said it would cost about $600,000 in operating expenses next year to implement the new configuration and about $500,000 in one-time capital costs.
“There are many families who are happy the issue is being addressed, that we’re taking another look at the way elementary schools are configured in Wayland,’’ Stein said. “There is general support for a K-5 model if it can work out.’’
But Stein said some parents have expressed concerns about the changes, such as the small number of classes at the Loker School, the cost of the proposal, and uncertainty about which school students will attend.
“There are compromises in whatever plan is chosen,’’ Stein said. “But this could be a very exciting model for Wayland.’’
Stein said he decided to review the configuration as a way to address space constraints at Happy Hollow School, the large number of students at Claypit Hill School, and the educational soundness of having just one grade at Loker School.
At Happy Hollow, Stein said, the art and music rooms are not in dedicated classrooms, the cafeteria is too small for the number of students attending it, and the nurse’s office is in the main office, separated by just a partition.
The kindergarten arrangement means students are at Loker for just one year before moving to a new school.
“Transitions are always to be taken seriously,’’ Stein said. “By the time you learn about the students and their needs, they are already transitioning.’’
Alexia Obar, a parent of a Happy Hollow School fifth-grader who served on the task force, said she is happy with the superintendent’s recommendation and satisfied with the process.
When the existing configuration was implemented in 2008-2009, Obar said, the change was sprung on parents without any public input.
“Six years ago, we literally got a note in our kid’s backpack saying that their school was closing and they had no idea where we were going,’’ Obar said. “It was a blood bath. It was horrible and caused this huge divisiveness between Loker and Happy Hollow. People still don’t talk to each other.
“So one of the things that was very important this time was we wanted to have a process so people felt comfortable with what was going on.’’
Obar said most parents who attended a recent public hearing spoke in favor of going back to a K-5 model, but still have concerns about how it will play out. She said one of the biggest issues is uncertainty about how schools will be assigned.
Stein said students will be placed in schools based on location, but the system will also include what he calls “buffer zones,’’ allowing administrators to make sure that students are evenly spread out and that each school has enough space to allow for growth.
Families living in a buffer zone between two elementary schools would be able to request placement in either one, he said, and the requests would then be granted based on space availability.
Also, any child beginning kindergarten who has a sibling already attending an elementary school would be guaranteed the right to attend the same elementary school.
“People are on edge because we don’t have the maps yet,’’ Obar said. “We don’t know what the zones are.’’
Stein said he understands those concerns and is working to pull the maps together so families will have some sense of which school zone they would be in.
Pamela Cerne, who served on the task force and has children at Happy Hollow, said the biggest concern she has heard is about the small number of classes at the Loker School. She said some parents are worried that the transition from a small school to the much larger Wayland Middle School would be difficult. She said some are also concerned that the small classes could present some social challenges.
But Cerne said she is happy the issue of the reconfiguration is being addressed, and she hopes it moves forward.
“I feel our elementary schools haven’t been paid as much attention to as they should be,’’ she said. “We need to focus on our elementary schools.’’
Stein said another area of concern is how the transition will go. He said fourth-grade students at Happy Hollow and Claypit Hill will remain in those schools for fifth grade so they do not have to change for just one year. All other grades would move to the new configuration next school year.
Now that Stein has made his recommendation, the School Committee will review it and vote on whether to support it in next year’s budget.
The bulk of new expenses come from turning Loker School, which has only housed kindergarten classes, some of which are half-day sessions, into a full school, Stein said.
Barb Fletcher, the School Committee’s chairwoman, said members discussed the proposal during its meeting Thursday night, and plan to take it up several more times over the next few weeks before taking a position.
She said committee members are grateful for the task force, which put in nearly 18 months of work to come up with ideas about how to address issues in the elementary schools.
“The School Committee is pleased we’re at a place where we can now move forward and that the process is continuing,’’ she said.
Jennifer Fenn Lefferts can be reached at jflefferts@ yahoo.com.