By JODI WOLFE
Staff Writer

OUTDOOR WALK – Lenny Chaput, maintenance supervisor at Armand R. Dupont School, sweeps the ramp at the modular classrooms that house two fifth-grade classes. Students have to walk between the modular and the school building in the background each day with no protection from the weather. (Jodi Wolfe Photo)

The Allenstown School Board will move forward with a plan to put an addition on Allenstown Elementary School instead of building a new school. The school would then house kindergarten through fifth grade, leaving Dupont with sixth- to eighth-graders.

Two years ago, residents voted against putting an addition on the elementary school, but the school board wants to put it on the ballot again this March.
 

The addition was originally planned to move the fifth grade out of the Armand R. Dupont School, which is currently houses grades 5 to 8.

Studies have shown that the fifth-graders learn better being housed with the lower grades instead of with grades 6 to 8, said Betsey Cox Stebbins, principal of the Armand R. Dupont School.

Currently, two of the three fifth-grade classes are in modular classrooms due to overcrowding. By moving the fifth grade to the elementary school, Dupont would gain one classroom, which Stebbins said would be used for a world language classroom. Presently, the world language teacher and the reading aide work in a hallway.

However, having one additional classroom would still not meet minimum standards, Stebbins said. Unlike other middle schools, Dupont doesn’t have a music program, a technical education program, home economics or Spanish. The school also doesn’t have a Title I reading specialist, she said.

If the sixth grade were also to move to the elementary school, three additional classrooms would be made available at Dupont School, but the additional grade would affect the infrastructure of the elementary school, said Stebbins.

“You can’t take sixth grade over without making major changes,” she said at the meeting.

Having two additional grades would create a need for more guidance counselors and a special education person, said Allenstown Elementary School Principal Terri Kenny.

“We’d have seven grade levels and that would really concern me,” she said. “I think K-5 is the way to go.”

The addition for the just fifth grade would offer space that the elementary school needs it get up to minimum standards.

“It would add computer space and tutoring space,” she said. “Things that are otherwise cramped and not up to state standards.”

Either way, members of school district agree that an addition would be beneficial.

“It’s really needed,” said school board Chairman Louis Conley.

The Allenstown School Board met Tuesday, Nov. 16, to go over cost estimate, architectural designs, and the effects the changes could have on the two schools.