Will it be East Veterans Elementary School, First Light Elementary School, Fishermen’s Memorial Elementary School or Seaside Elementary School?
After a months-long process, the Gloucester School Committee is scheduled to vote on Wednesday, Oct. 26, on what to call the new 440-student, kindergarten-through-fifth-grade school under construction on Webster Street and scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2023.
The school board is also scheduled to vote on an update of school attendance zones, which is being done in light of the consolidation of East Gloucester and Veterans Memorial elementary schools’ student bodies and staffs into this new school. The changes are meant as a way to maximize enrollment at the new school, maintain small class sizes, and reduce socio-economic disparities among elementary schools.
The school is being built on the site of the former Veterans Memorial school building and a portion of Mattos Field. Veterans is in session at the former St. Ann School on Prospect Street.
The plan also involves creating clearly defined school attendance zones among the city’s elementary schools.
The vote on the new school’s name, scheduled during a remote meeting starting at 6 p.m., comes after the School Committee held a public hearing on the finalist names on Oct. 12. The School Committee had voted in December 2021 not to name the school after a person as part of approving the naming process.
The School Committee is scheduled to deliberate publicly and vote to approve one of the four finalists names that were generated by nominations from the community and narrowed down to 10 semifinalists and four finalists by a student-led Nominations Committee. Under its authority, the School Committee has the final say on what to name the new school.
The plan to consolidate the school attendance zones has been discussed in recent weeks, but a vote to approve the updated zones was postponed during an Oct. 12 meeting.
The continuance was meant to give Superintendent Ben Lummis time to explore a 5-year transition period to the new school zones instead of a 3-year transition. Many of the changes to the school zones revolve around those of the Plum Cove and Beeman Memorial elementary schools. Students who attend Veterans or East Gloucester will have a spot in the new school under the plan.
Under the latest proposal, all pupils who attend elementary school would be allowed to stay put for up to five years even if they do not live in that school’s attendance zone once the changes are made. Under the plan, up to 85% of elementary school families would not be impacted by the changes.
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