Parent Wonders About New School Design and Special Education
New school build currently on schedule
BAR HARBOR—An update on the new school building by Principal Dr. Heather Webster at the Conners Emerson School Committee meeting on March 4 came after the public comment period during which, Michelle Shaw, parent of a Conners Emerson student, spoke of concerns about the special education department and the spaces that they will have in the new building.
Shaw’s daughter is a special education student and is part of the SUN room (students with unique needs) community. One of Shaw’s concerns is that her daughter, who is in a middle school grade, is in the same room as much younger students, some as young as kindergarten.
“The SUN room should be functioning as a community just like the classroom is. The kids do field trips together and group projects together and make friends and what not,” said Shaw. She feels that it is even more important for the SUN room kids to have that, given that they don’t often interact with other classrooms.
Shaw’s daughter did have a small peer group in the SUN room but those kids have moved away, she said. Now, her daughter is in the room with the younger students and with such a large age gap, she is segregated.
“At some point, the school will have a need for two SUN rooms,” Shaw said. Perhaps one for younger kids and one for older, possibly an elementary SUN room and a middle school SUN room.
Shaw feels that the resource rooms in the plans for the new building have shrunk in size and number and that the special education department is losing space as the plans for the new building are being reworked.
Shaw said that she feels that “looking into the future and spending this kind of money, that it should be thought about,” especially with a $57-million project.
In response to an email inquiry, Dr. Webster said, “In the new building, there are three stories, so we have designed three SPED (special education) rooms (one on each floor) and the SUN room on the second floor. There is only one SUN room, but we were purposeful in creating a space that could be accessed by any student depending on what our SUN room’s needs are. Our new SPED rooms also have quiet spaces in addition to workspaces to accommodate the varied needs of our SPED population. We also have additional workspaces for special education teachers to work with individual students or small groups.
“We currently have six SPED teachers with four resource rooms and one SUN room in addition to a SPED Coordinator. It is important that we are flexible in looking at the caseloads, groupings, and locations for our SPED rooms, SPED teachers, and SPED programming. For instance, this year our SPED grouping is grade five and 6-8, but with a large fourth grade class, we will be moving to a 5-6 and 7-8 split, so having one designated room on each floor and the ability to use additional space if needed gives us the flexibility to be responsive to student needs and SPED caseloads.”
NEW SCHOOL BUILDING UPDATE
Webster will be meeting with the architects this week to talk about plans for the new school which are approximately 80% complete. This week the meeting will center around finer aspects of the plans such as outlet placement and door hardware.
The architects are expecting bidding level plans and documents to be issued in May.
In regard to the floor plans themselves, Webster said, “There have been several versions of the floor plans as we are moving through the design process and we are excited to see the newest version either later this month or in April.”
Vice Chair Marie Yarborough asked about having solar panels on the roof of the new school which will be solar ready when built. School Superintendent Mike Zboray said that they have had a conversation with Town Manager James Smith and he is aware that that is an option for placing solar panels to help the town meet its carbon emission reduction goals.
The new school project is currently on schedule according to Webster. You can find more information about the new school build here.
PRINCIPAL’S REPORT
During her principal’s report, Dr. Webster said the following:
There are a couple of special education referrals in the works so that department may being seeing an increase in needs as far as ed techs are concerned.
The Center for Disease Control has issued new guidelines for respiratory viruses, which includes COVID-19. You can find those updated guidelines here.
The Business of Reading is coming back to Conners-Emerson this year. If you are interested in reading to students, you can email Dr. Webster at hwebster@mdirss.org.
Grades 4 and 6 will be heading up north to view the solar eclipse in a spot that has 100% visibility. There will also be an eclipse viewing party at the school.
The PTSA is hosting a movie night this Friday, March 8 in the cafeteria. The movie will be Spies in Disguise. The cafeteria will open at 5:45 p.m. and the movie runs from 6–8. For more information on this and other school events you can go here.
Eighth-grade teachers and ninth-grade teachers will be visiting each other’s classrooms this week so that the eighth-grade teachers can have more realistic knowledge of what eighth graders can expect moving on to high school and the ninth-grade teachers can better know how eighth grade is taught and prepped for their transition to high school.
The school is currently at 350 students with two more expected to be enrolling this week.
SCHOOL CALENDAR
Board members discussed the school calendar during the “other business” portion of the meetings. Committee member Misha Mytar commented about the number of instructional hours that students are receiving and meeting the requirements of the State of Maine and keeping the students from lagging behind the rest of the nation.
Zboray asked what was more important for students, the quantity of education or the quality of the education and referenced other countries, like Norway, that have a shorter school day but consistently score higher on international educational testing.
Mytar then referenced a public comment that was made at an AOS 91 Regular Board Meeting on February 12 regarding consistency of the schedule for parents scheduling purposes for work and childcare. Mystar said that quality, quantity, and consistency should all be looked at.
Zboray said that it is not really any particular school board’s job to be creating the schedule, but rather the administration’s job. However, the administration does need to take every school’s educational hours and progress into consideration when crafting the schedule.
The next meeting of the Bar Harbor School Department Committee is scheduled for April 1 at 4:30 p.m. in the school library.
I must admit to some confusion when it comes to this proposed new elementary school. Every newspaper and substack article I've read in the past few years RE Bar Harbor housing availability has said that housing for working families is shrinking and that many middle class families have already, and will continue to be, forced to move. One would suspect that this ever shrinking population would inevitably lead to fewer and fewer students and thus an ever diminishing demand for school space? It will definitely result in fewer and fewer taxable properties as more and more nonprofits replace taxable properties.