Hermon committee upholds vote on moving fifth-graders

HERMON – The school committee stood firm Monday night on its decision to move the town’s fifth-graders from the elementary school to the middle school this fall, despite a strong local petition effort against the relocation.

The committee in January voted 3-2 in favor of the move, but agreed to put the issue on Monday’s agenda at the request of petition organizer Wendy Berglund.

In order to reopen discussion on the move, however, a motion was needed from one committee member from the prevailing side of the January vote, either Donna Pulver, Tim Richardson or Kathleen Carmichael.

Asked for a motion by committee Chairman Ralph Carr, however, all three sat silently.

Carr and committee member Shelly Look in January voted against the relocation

One parent spoke Monday in favor of the committee’s decision, saying her child is looking forward to joining the middle school.

“My fourth-grader is extremely excited,” Dawn Dixon, a mother of three, said at the meeting.

The relocation, with an estimated cost of $10,000, is designed to alleviate crowding at the elementary school, which now includes kindergarten through fifth grade.

Hermon Middle School, however, has room for the nearly 70 pupils who will enter the fifth grade next year, according to school officials.

“The overcrowding, it’s so sad,” Dixon said.

Petition organizers argue that the children will be rushed through a critical year of development by mixing with older pupils.

“We’re disappointed,” Berglund said Monday as the open session of Monday’s meeting concluded, gathering outside with two other petition organizers.

“It’s not just us, it’s the 192 people who signed the petition,” organizer Shelley Snow added.

The petition group last Thursday submitted 192 signatures to the town office as part of an effort to override the school committee’s decision and force a local referendum on the issue in June.

The group needed at least 186 signatures, or 10 percent of the number of voters in the last gubernatorial election, to get a local referendum.

The signatures have been verified and the petition under legal review. It will be presented to the Town Council on Thursday.