School Administrative District 15 Board of Directors appear ready to move forward March 4 with a plan to move fifth-graders to Gray-New Gloucester Middle School, despite concerns about the plan expressed recently by parents.

Unexpected student population growth at the lower grade levels will limit classroom space at Dunn Elementary School starting in the 2010-11 school year, and a committee charged with solving the issue has recommended moving the fifth grade to the spacious middle school to free up room. The board is scheduled to vote on the recommendation March 4.

At a meeting to unveil the plan Feb. 10, parents worried that the younger students would have trouble fitting in at the middle school, and could run into trouble when mixing with high school kids on the combined high school-middle school bus.

But as the board met to discuss the proposal as a group for the first time Wednesday, at least one member said the fifth-graders may fare better at the middle school than if kept at Dunn Elementary, where portable classrooms would be needed next year to house an overflow of 38 students.

Board member Tami Plummer of Gray said her child attended school in a portable classroom at Dunn, and came away feeling segregated from the rest of the students. Keeping the fifth-graders together makes the most sense, she said.

“That was the hardest year for her,” said Plummer.

Chairman Alan Rich, too, said moving the fifth grade to the middle school is the best of many options explored by the committee, of which he was a member. The committee examined at least 10 options, including constructing new classrooms or adding portables at Dunn, buying space at Pineland, and rearranging the grade levels at each school in a number of permutations.

Some of the options were dismissed as logistically difficult, such as redistricting students at Russell and Memorial Schools, which would lead to changes on a yearly basis, said Rich. Of the four options considered as potential solutions, moving the fifth grade was the only one that was not cost prohibitive, Rich said. In fact, it would likely save the district around $70,000 due to the elimination of some support staff.

“The choices seem to narrow when you look at the money issues,” said Rich.

Dunn Principal Bruce Beasley and Sherry Levesque, principal at the middle school, were also at the meeting to calm parents’ worries about integrating the fifth grade with the older student population.

They said they rarely see problems on the buses between students in different grade levels, and that the seating arrangements can be configured to lessen the chance of harassment. The space at the middle school will also allow the fifth grade to have its own wing, and soon the students will feel that it is their school as well, the principals said.

Mike MacDonald, a parent from Gray, said the students would handle the transition well, especially since both the current fourth and fifth grades would move together to the middle school under the plan. They could lean on each other as they got comfortable in the new school.

“A lot of them are friends already,” he said.

Some of the parents attending the meeting Wednesday were not convinced.

Mike Johnson of Gray said now would be the perfect time to look into constructing a new addition at Dunn to accommodate the rising population. Contractors are looking for work, and prices are falling, he said. The committee was too quick to dismiss some of the options, Johnson said.

“I don’t think we’ve looked at all the possibilities,” he said.

New construction may be a good idea, but it can take three to four years to be approved for funding, Rich said. The population increase looks like a short-term problem, he added. Either way, the district can make the move, and then watch for any changes down the road before making an investment, Rich said.

After the somewhat contentious meeting Feb. 10, some parents said they are starting to feel comfortable with the plan. George Carman of New Gloucester said he was skeptical at first, but then visited the middle school and came away thinking it would work well having the fifth grade there, just as they had been 1989-98.

“We’re just going back to what the school was built for,” he said.

Board member Sherry Robinson said the situation could work just as well as it did then, too, though she wanted to make sure the fifth-graders now got something their counterparts then never did: a playground.

“I think it’s going to be real hard for fifth-graders if there is nothing to do,” she said. “Can we make sure that there is going to be something more than a field?”

School Administrative District 15 board members, including Gary Harriman and Bill Burrow, listened Wednesday night to parents debate a plan to move the fifth grade to Gray-New Gloucester Middle School next year. The board will make a decision at their March 4 meeting.Mike Johnson, a parent from Gray, said the district should consider building an addition at Dunn Elementary to handle a population bump at that level. “I don’t think we’ve actually looked at all the possibilities,” he said.