Part 2: Overcrowding in the Windham School District

In case you weren't aware, members of the public are being offered free tours of the current Windham Middle School.

No, there's no dates or times scheduled for a walkthrough of the Lowell Road facility, but Principal Daniel Moulis said that he is more than happy to show any individual around, and in effect expose them to the constraints that they are working with in the overcapacity building.

For instance, some might not know that the library is also a classroom, a situation that Moulis calls the "most obvious" of accomodations they have had to make for a growing student population.

It's not the only difficult situation at the school.

"I have one teacher who is doing small reading breakout out of an office," said Moulis.

But as a five-year administrator at WMS following a teaching career that went from New Hampshire to Connecticut and back, Moulis doesn't have any complaints about the facility itself, which was built in the mid-80's.

Also not complaining are Moulis' employees, even when they are saddled with sixth grade foreign language classrooms of 30 students or dividers being erected in the library.

He called everyone "connsumate team players," adding that when he went to one of his librarians last year to tell them that teachers working off of carts needed a teaching space, they said "we'll make it work." 

Add to that a student motivation, which Moulis said is commonplace at his school every day, and you have an academic environment making the best of the situation.

But Moulis said that there will be a breaking point, and if something isn't done in the next year or two, the growth will become "too much."

"You're talking enrollment numbers of 250 students a (grade) class," said Moulis. "We'll be well over capacity at that point. We already are, but we'll be even moreso."

That has Moulis carefully paying attention to the warrant articles, waiting to see what way the town votes on March 13. He already plans on taking a trip to Litchfield Middle School, which acording to Moulis currently uses modular classrooms successfully, should that warrant pass.

Litchfield has all of its fifth graders in modular classrooms.

"That would be a model I would want to see more of," said Moulis.

Should Windham voters pass the funding of architecture and engineering fees toward a new facility on London Bridge Road, Moulis said that he expects the current middle school to become a fifth and sixth grade building. That would create one extra transition for students, but he said that he isn't worried about that.

"As long as you have the proper transition teams in place, it works," said Moulis.

Windham High School Principal Tom Murphy understands the positive give-and-take that a facility on London Bridge Road would offer.

"I would see it as more advantageous," said Murphy

He said that it would be great to have students who have tested out of middle school classes to even have the opportunity to walk up to WHS and take a course up there, almost as if it were a campus.

Murphy said that in the past, it was hard to discuss collaboration in the district with students leaving the middle school and going off to Salem High School or elsewhere. With the new WHS, they assess ciricculum as a kindergarten through 12th grade piece with a better continuation.

"You're able to develop the common assessments, do the analysis, and from the analysis identify where kids are kind of struggling across the board," said Murphy. "What we've identified through the middle school and high school is there are some gaps that exist in the curicculum and we're going through and refining that."

Murphy said that it would be nice if the high school facility would be completed with a track and possibly other fields, but understands that solving the overcrowding is important

The high school has also asserted itself as being strong on technology, something that Murphy said the administration helps incoming teachers with if that isn't their forte. 

The idea is to hire people for their teaching capabilities, but eventually have them strong on techonology.

"You want an optimal setting for kids to actually be able to perform, and from that performance hopefully you can get achievement," said Murphy. 

He said that a facility can impact that achievement if it doesn't offer the infrastructure for technology, or if it raises safety issues for students.

Murphy didn't want to say too much else about a middle school project, but spoke volumes about his own facility, which he jokingly referred to as "the building that never sleeps." due to its heavy traffic of events.

"People come by here in all hours into the evening," said Murphy. "There's always something going on."

Although community members are always using the space, he did extinguish the notion that the extra space at WHS could work for an eighth grade, thereby eliminating some of the overcrowding without spending any extra money.

He said that eighth graders would need to be segregated as much as possible – that there is too much of an age gap between them and seniors in high school.

"This building is not designed for segregation," said Murphy, who added that the shared facilities such as the gym, science labs and cafeteria would all be mutual space.

He also said that not many 8-12 facilities exist in New England. The only places he knows of are three separate facilities in upstate Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts.

The change would also set back accredidation of WHS by at least a year, as they would have to go forward with a different model.

Another idea that was kicked around and even recommended by the most recent facilities planning committee was an edition at the middle school, but Moulis agreed with the school board that the unsolvable traffic issue made it a very difficult option.

The Windham School District deliberative session will take place on Feb. 10 at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium. Warrants will be explained, discussed and amended as needed.

Look for part three in our school overcrowding series on March 2.