Fifth-grade students in School Administrative District 15 would likely learn well inside the walls of Gray-New Gloucester Middle School. It’s the things that might happen outside the school, away from the watchful eyes of educators, that worry parents who attended a forum Tuesday night regarding a proposal to move the fifth grade to the middle school.

Unexpected student population growth at the lower grade levels will limit classroom space at Dunn Elementary School starting in the 2010-11 school year, SAD 15 officials said. A committee charged with solving the issue has recommended moving the fifth-grade to the spacious middle school to free up room, which would put the fifth-graders on the same buses as high school students, a tough sell for parents.

“Having my 10-year-old daughter on the bus with 18-year-old boys, I think that bothers everyone here,” said Troy Reilly of New Gloucester, the father of a fourth-grade student.

Reilly’s concerns were echoed, in one form or another, by many of the 35 or so parents who attended Tuesday’s forum, the first opportunity for parents and school officials to comment in public on the plan. The board will debate the proposal at its Feb. 25 meeting before making a decision March 4.

School officials, including Superintendent Victoria Burns and middle school Principal Sherry Levesque, said the Grade 5-8 structure is common throughout the state, and would allow for a number of enhancements in the fifth-grade curricular and extracurricular schedule.

Fifth-graders would have their own wing at the school, they said, and would rarely come into contact with the older students. Bus drivers know to put the younger students at the front, and to keep an eye on any mingling with the older students, the officials stressed.

Those and other issues, including which activities the fifth-graders would be allowed to participate in, can be worked out by a team of parents, teachers and administrators that will be formed should the proposal be approved, they said.

The plan, Burns said, would also cut around $70,000 from the budget next year, at the same time the district attempts to deal with an approximately $300,000 loss in state aid. Though no teaching positions would be cut as part of the move, some support staff duplicated at Dunn School and the middle school would be eliminated, Burns said.

While most of the parents were satisfied the educational component of the proposal could be worked out, they remained skeptical that fifth-graders next year and in the future could meld socially with older students, and they wondered why the plan couldn’t wait another year to give parents and school officials extra time to warm to the idea.

District officials and committee members answered well the questions about class size, structure and scheduling, said parent Colleen Strickler. But they did little to answer worries about bus trips with older students, inclusion in school activities, and the earlier start time at the middle school.

“I feel like you are saying, ‘Well, get used to it,'” Strickler told the School Board.

With classes at the middles school starting a half-hour earlier than at Dunn, Strickler sees the start of her day getting a little harder if the plan is passed.

“I have to fight with them to get them ready in the morning,” Strickler said.

It wasn’t just the beginning of the day that had parents worried. Many of them told the board they wouldn’t feel right leaving their fifth-graders home alone at the end of school, which gets out earlier at the middle school level.

“Having to get up and be at school by 7:30 and have my daughter home at 2 with no one to watch her is definitely a concern for me,” said one parent.///WHAT TIME DOES THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL START AND END?///

One parent, Sherry Herbert, who has a child in the fourth grade, said she would start driving her child to school in the morning rather than have the student on a bus with older kids. If the plan is approved, she said, the school should plan for extra traffic from like-minded parents.

“It could be quite a cluster of cars and a convergence on Route 26,” Herbert said.

After-school activities also raised a number of questions with parents, who wondered which activities fifth-graders would be able to take part in. Socializing among the age groups can be helpful, depending on the situation, they said.

“I just don’t want a 14-year-old with a 10-year-old at a dance. It’s not appropriate,” said Herbert.

Again and again, the conversation at the forum turned to busing, and to wisdom of placing fifth-graders on the same bus as high school students. Told that the bus drivers are able to adequately handle discipline on the bus, and can turn to administrators when there is a problem, the parents wondered if the schools are aware of everything that is taking place on the buses, and whether the plan was just inviting problems.

“I want bus drivers to concentrate on driving,” said Strickler. “I want the bus driver to drive, but I want my kid to be safe.”

Not all the parents saw a problem with the busing issue. Karen Chase said most high school students find another way to get to school besides the bus, and she remembers little interaction between the younger and older students.

Theresa Boynton, a parent who served on the committee that made the recommendation, said she talked with her child’s bus driver about the possibility of putting fifth-graders on the high school bus. Boynton came away assured that there would be no safety issues.

“For me, for my personal bus driver, I feel comfortable,” she said.

As for the move in general, 5-8 schools in Cape Elizabeth and Yarmouth, which were visited by the committee, report success with the structure. Cape Elizabeth only recently made the change, and both school officials and parents are happy, Boynton said.

“Parents were nervous at the beginning of the year. But things turned out fine,” she said.

Teacher Scott Hodgkins said SAD 15 had a similar experience when the fifth grade moved to the middle school in 1989. The grade moved to Dunn School after renovations in 1998.

“There was a rough transition, because they were coming from an elementary school to a middle school. But it all smoothed out,” he said

Once they were settled, the fifth grade found a good home at the middle school, Hodgkins said.

“It was a pretty self-contained grade level. We had our own world down there,” he said.

Karen Chase was one of around 35 parents to attend a forum Tuesday at Gray-New Gloucester Middle School to hear about a proposal to move School Administrative District 15 fifth-graders to the middle school next year.Carrie and James Carter, of Gray, take a moment out of Tuesday’s forum on a plan to move SAD 15 fifth-graders to the middle school to make a point to school board member Gary Harriman. The Carters, who will have four kids in the school district next year, said moving fifth-graders in with much older students could be dangerous.Parents at a forum Tuesday night to discuss moving Gray and New Gloucester fifth-graders to the middle school were worried about the young students riding the bus with high schoolers. “Having my 10-year-old daughter on the bus with 18-year-old boys, I think that bothers everyone here,” said Troy Reilly of New Gloucester, the father of a fourth-grade student.Lisa Knedler, a parent who served on the committee recommending that fifth-graders in SAD 15 attend the middle school, said Tuesday the proposal made the most sense, both educationally and economically, of any options available to the district.