Belleville Schools Shift Sixth-Graders to Middle School

To alleviate classroom crowding in the township’s elementary schools and to comply with state funding requirements, Belleville schools are moving sixth graders from elementary schools to the middle school starting in September.

Belleville Schools Superintendent Helene Feldman said 359 graduating fifth-graders will enroll at the middle school next year. In addition, the school district is looking to hire 12 teachers certified to teach middle school children.

Feldman said the move would free up classrooms and resources in the elementary schools without overtaxing the middle school. With the oldest elementary school grade in the middle school, they would be able to split the remaining elementary school children into newly freed up classrooms.

“Space is not an issue in the middle school,” she said, explaining that the building has the capacity to hold 1,300 students and only has about 660 enrolled now. Feldman said the 359 new middle school students would occupy the building’s third floor and be under threshold.

The change would allow the school to comply with state requirements. Currently, Belleville sixth graders stay in the same classroom with the same teacher throughout the school day. Transferring them to the Middle school would have them move to different classrooms to be taught by different instructors with specialized training and certification.

Feldman said New Jersey requires teachers have specialized certification for districts to qualify for state aid. 

The move was not popular with some parents. The Belleville Times reported that the Tuesday Board of Education meeting where school officials voted on the grade relocation was “turbulent.”

“Parents feel that it happened too quickly,” Feldman said. “But this is the time of year when you start looking at how many students are coming into the building.”

Anthony Sallese, head of the district’s teachers union the Belleville Education Association, said the union did not object to transferring the students.

Feldman said that savings from senior teachers retiring this year would offset the cost of hiring new Middle School teachers.

Feldman, a former special education worker, hopes that the move will allow them to return some special education student currently in schools outside to Belleville to the district.