Combining Grades K-6 together at Oakham Center School

In response to the decision by the school committee to again separate grades K-1 to New Braintree and 2-6 to Oakham Center.  This decision was made at the threat of a possible lawsuit against the school district from the town of New Braintree regarding keeping some students at the school in town.  I wrote this petition and I hope you will read some of the points below to see  Thank you for reading and for your consideration.

The childrens education will be compromised.  Funding to run both schools is desperatly needed in other areas.

4th grade class has 35 students and 1 teacher and 90% of the parents in that class have concerns about keeping their kids in an environment that is overcrowded and not giving the attention each and every child deserves. 2 teachers of those large classes have moved on out of the school because they can no longer support that large of a class and feel it is an injustice to the kids.

Selectman in NB would not provide a police presence at the NB school for less than 1 hour a day at drop off and pick up for security purposes, stating, and I quote "nothing is going to happen in our little Podunk town".  With 60 kids to 3 teachers in NB, and obviously no concern from the selectman regarding a police presence, SECURITY IS A MAJOR ISSUE!

K-1 at NB will not have a lunch staff and the district has no idea how or if hot lunches or milk will be served. 

There will be 3 teachers to about 60 students and no other type of security in NB.

Money that it will take to hire and admin and janitorial service at NB could be used for so much more in the district, hiring new teachers for very overcrowded classroom as one example.

There will be NO full time nurse, no full time principal, at NB and OCS. These people, who are 2 of the most important members of the staff, will be bopping back and forth from school to school - possibly while one of the 3 teachers at NB and any of the teachers/aides in OCS are left to deal with a cut/bloody nose/headache/stomach ache of a young child RATHER than educating them!

A beautiful afterschool program which took some time to get together started at NB last year.  With splitting the grades again, there is a question of whether this will be able to continue at any or both of the 2 schools.

Teachers have expressed their desires to work under one roof with all grades.  The benefits of this are great, supervised help from older students with reading and writing to the younger students has showed trememdous success.

Oakham/New Braintree Parents/Residents    Contact the author of the petition