Belleville School ‘Redistricting’ Will Affect Middle, Elementary Students

BELLEVILLE, NJ — Soon, grade 5 will no longer be a Belleville student’s final year in “elementary school.”

Starting in September 2018, the Belleville Public School District will officially kick off its redistricting effort, moving Grade 6 students back its elementary schools. The new alignment will be:

• Grades K-6 (elementary schools)
• Grades 7-8 (middle schools)
• Grades 9-12 (high school)

The new grade configuration – approved during a Board of Education meeting on June 19 – is a reversal of a 2013 decision, which left the middle school “overcrowded,” Superintendent Richard Tomko told NorthJersey.com. Read the full article here.

According to a Belleville Public Schools presentation on the redistricting effort released in May, problems with the grade 6-8 middle school configuration included:

• Overcrowding in the hallways and stairways
• Displacement of elementary teachers who wanted to stay in their respective elementary schools
• Not enough bathrooms
• Overcrowding in the lunchroom-all students are not able to sit or get their food and eat in a timely manner
• Special Education has been put into areas that were never expected to be classrooms (offices, etc.)
• Teachers are being moved from room to room and not teaching what the room is set up for (ELA in a Computer Lab or ELA Resource in a Science or Art Room)
• Older students can be a negative influence on younger students

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