EAST LONGMEADOW — The East Longmeadow School Committee approved a plan to attract more students to the preschool program at Meadow Brook Elementary School by offering another full-day class.
During the 2022-23 school year, Principal Renee Lodi requested changes to the configuration of preschool sections. She explained that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education requires an essentially even mixture of students with special education individualized education plans and general education students, known as “peer role models.” At Meadow Brook, the number of students on IEPs consistently outpaced the peer role model students. To address this, Lodi asked the School Department to adopt one full-day preschool classroom and three half-day classrooms with morning and afternoon sessions, the opposite of what had been offered prior to that.
Since then, however, the number of peer role model students has dropped by 50%, from 31 students to 15. Lodi said eight of the 15 students are enrolled in the full-day classroom, demonstrating their families’ desire for full-day preschool. Further driving home that preference, Lodi said that 11 of the children who did not continue in the program were 4-year-olds, and most of those families said they wanted a full-day preschool prior to kindergarten enrollment.
The remaining seven peer role models are distributed among the two half-day sections that are currently running, leading to an uneven balance of students with IEPs.
Aside from the state’s requirement, attracting peer role models is essential to funding the preschool program. By law, the School Department must provide preschool placement to students with IEPs at no cost to the family. The peer role models are charged tuition for the program. The annual tuition for full-day preschool is $6,300, with $2,500 for half-day classes. The tuition helps to offset the cost for the School Department to run the program, including the salaries for teachers, two of the paraprofessionals and a coordinator. School Committee Chair Gregory Thompson commented that the district is rolling over “substantially less than last year.”
To address low peer role model enrollment, Lodi suggested a switch to two full-day classrooms and two half-day classrooms with morning and afternoon sessions. According to her notes, there had not been more than 45 students with IEPs in the program, the same as the current year, with 31 IEP students and another 14 pending enrollments. However, the new configuration could accommodate up to 51 IEP students. Adding a full-day class would attract more peer role models to even out those figures, Lodi said. She added that full-day preschool will boost kindergarten readiness by providing a “robust” program, Lodi said.
Lodi also pointed out that a single full-day class meant that the full-day IEP students with the most “significant challenges” were all in the same class, making for a “very challenging school year.”
School Committee member Sarah Truoiolo asked if all 31 of the students with IEPs would be in the program next year. Lodi said 14 of them will be entering kindergarten, with new students likely entering the preschool program.
When asked about physical space for the classrooms, Lodi described a shell game of room swapping that would allow for the section configuration to work. She also said the school would not need to hire a new teacher as the full-day class has a co-teaching arrangement this year with two teachers. They could each be given a full-day class. Lodi also said the School Department would not need to hire more paraprofessionals if they “think creatively” about how the six existing paraprofessionals are distributed among the classrooms.
Natatorium name
The School Committee took up the topic of naming the natatorium, which will house the new high school’s pool. Among the names previously suggested by the High School Building Committee were “Spartan Natatorium,” “Spartan Community Natatorium,” “EL Community Natatorium” and “East Longmeadow Community Natatorium.”
Thompson said he had been in favor of the word “community” in the name because “we wanted the focus on the community.” However, he had changed his mind because the important part was to make it community oriented in practice, rather than name. Thompson suggested “Redstone Quarry Natatorium,” citing the historical significance of the town’s quarries. He added that it was appropriate in a literal sense because, “A quarry is a big hole in the ground full of water.”
School Committee member Antonella Raschilla Manzi liked the idea. “’Redstone Quarry’ has a sense of community in that name,” she said. However, Truoiolo was not sold, and remarked, “It’s a mouthful.” Thompson said it could be called “The Quarry” for short.
School Committee member William Strother said he would have liked to name the natatorium after Superintendent Gordon Smith, recognizing that he has overseen the efforts to secure a new high school over the past decade. Nonetheless, he said he was onboard with “Redstone Quarry Natatorium.” The committee voted to use that name for the building. Members of the committee joked that Smith could have a statue sculpted in his honor, in lieu of the natatorium’s name. He quipped that he would pose for a quarryman statue.
