Details of Elem. School Merger Still Contested

In more than three hours of intense questioning last night, members of the Cambridge School Committee pressed school district officials for more details on the proposed merger of two elementary schools.

Superintendent of Schools Bobbie J. D'Alessandro presented a 60-page proposal for the union of the Fletcher and Maynard schools yesterday. The proposal elaborated on skeleton recommendations she made at a committee meeting three weeks ago.

The plan recommends capping class size at 17 students at the schools, and would exempt the school from the district's system of racial quotas.

The school committee plans to vote next Tuesday on the merger, which would take effect this fall.

But parents who spoke before the school committee last night said they were concerned the plan would result in students moving three times in three years.

"How will displacing them and turning them into nomads help them?" said Chemi Whitlow, a Maynard parent on the steering committee of district officials, teachers and parents which suggested most of the recommendations D'Alessandro gave to the school committee last night.

Under D'Alessandro's plan, she will pick the final location by mid-April. Based on an architectural study currently underway, she will suggest either renovating the Fletcher or Maynard or building a new school--renovations or construction could cost as much as $12 to $15 million.

In the two or three years district officials say it would take to renovate or build a facility, students would temporarily relocate to either the Fletcher or Maynard buildings.

But according to the plan students may have to relocate again--to a larger, rented facility--if district officials find next fall that there is not enough space to fit the students from both schools into one building.

"Our concern was having enough classrooms, because we have special status and small classes," D'Alessandro said. "If we get to this facility and find we can't do what we want to, we want the option of moving."

Students will have to move twice--into a temporary facility and then into the permanent building.

But after parents and school committee members expressed concern about having students move a third time, D'Alessandro said she would be willing to strike the possibility of a third move, but said the temporary facility might be crowded.

On other points, the proposal D'Alessandro submitted was significantly more specific than the draft recommendations she presented last month.

The plan calls for 21 teachers for kindergarten through eighth grade, plus art, music, physical education and foreign language instructors and eight special education teachers.

Under D'Alessandro's proposal, the school would use curriculum developed by Core Knowledge, a national organization that would tailor its program to specific state standards.

Teachers would have to be trained in the new curriculum, which D'Alessandro said would help improve students' scores on the state's standardized assessment tests.

D'Alessandro has also proposed an early-grade literacy program for the new school modeled on programs at other schools in Cambridge. Her plan also calls for a major emphasis on improving technology education, which has lagged at the Fletcher and Maynard.

And all teaching positions at Fletcher and Maynard would be vacated; teachers would have to reapply to teach at the merged school.

However, these teachers would be guaranteed a job somewhere in the school district.

The plan would also open the school to the siblings of current students.

This provision aims to address an objection of some minority parents whose children have been bussed to other schools in the district to meet racial quotas.

District officials expect about 350 students in the merged school next fall. They said they were not sure how many siblings to expect.

Currently, there are 385 students enrolled at the Fletcher and Maynard. But that number will decrease due to normal attrition over the summer, said Lenora M. Jennings, the district's executive director for student achievement and accountability.

Prompted by committee members' questions on how the sibling provision would affect class size. Jennings said the schools might need to violate the 17-student cap if many siblings enroll at the school.

Under the current plan, the exemption from the racial quota and the class size cap will be phased out in five to eight years.

In the meantime, the district will recruit white students to bring the school into racial balance.

The merger "will keep a school in Area Four and create a school with attractions for white children," said D'Alessandro, referring to the Cambridge neighborhood where the Fletcher and Maynard are located, which has a higher minority population than some other areas of the city.

Committee members were divided on whether or not to send the proposal to the Fletcher and Maynard school councils--parents' associations, that is--to seek parental approval of the merger before the school committee gives its final approval of the merger.

"If we're afraid to go to the school council," said committee member Susana M. Segat, "then it's going to be a rough merger."

According to Jennings, the plan the committee approved last spring did not provide for the proposal to be voted on by school councils.

D'Alessandro said she "wouldn't hesitate" to present the plan to the councils, but said she worried this move would prevent the committee from being ready for a vote next Tuesday.

Committee member Joseph G. Grassi said he favored voting next week and not going back to the school councils.

Grassi said though the steering committee may have drawn up recommendations, ultimately it was D'Alessandro who approved them and passed them along to the school committee.

Since neither the steering committee nor the school councils have no policymaking power, Grassi argued that to solicit their votes on the matter would simply create an unnecessary delay.

"As valid as they are, every committee is advisory," he said.