Next Year, All Under One Roof
Grades 6th through 8th will be attending Bedford next year.
After several months of debate over multiple BOE plans, we are now able to say with certainty what the plan will be for the Westport Public Schools district next year.
All Westport 6th, 7th and 8th graders will be under the same Bedford roof. No more until Fall 2020 will there be Bedford Middle School and Coleytown Middle School, no more Bedford and Coleytown students, there will just be all Bedford students.
On Feb. 7, the Representative Town Meeting approved the Board Of Finance-supported plan for all grades in one school, effectively killing the K-6 plan, which was supported by Westport Public Schools Superintendent Colleen Palmer.
According to a recent email sent on Feb. 7 to parents and teachers, Dr. Palmer said that she along with the Board Of Education brought the K-6 and 6-8 plans before the Board Of Finance.
“Last evening (Feb. 6), the BOF (Board Of Finance) voted to fund $1M for portables at BMS.”
This decision means that the Board Of Finance does not support the K-6 plan, which as mentioned before the Superintendent and the Board of Education have supported.
If it was approved, the proposed K-6 plan would have meant that grades kindergarten through 6th would remain at their own elementary schools. Seventh and eighth graders would have all been together at Bedford. Sixth grade teachers from both Bedford as well as Coleytown would have been reassigned to elementary schools if that proposed plan had been approved, but alas it was not.
According to the Superintendent’s Twitter, the plan is for Coleytown Middle School to reopen in the fall of 2020 after rebuilding HVAC systems and fixing the damage.
The reaction among students is mixed. 8th grader Matthew Fleming says “It’s fine, but it isn’t ideal and there are not many options.”
8th grader, Josh Gordon says he’s for building a whole new Coleytown. “They should just tear it down and rebuild it.”.
The district finally has an official plan for combined middle schools, and “Ursus“ will try to bring its readers more details as the administration and teachers prepare for the new school year.
