School Committee Considers Grade Reconfigurations

The Seekonk School Committee is considering the approval of major changes to the district’s schools for the 2026-2027 year. The need to reduce class sizes may precipitate moving eighth grade students at Hurley Middle School to Seekonk High School.

Other changes would be designating Aitken Elementary School for students in pre-kindergarten through Grade 2 and Martin Elementary School to students in Grades three through five.

Committee member Kyle Juckett noted “safety concerns” regarding moving the eighth grade students to the high school. “As a parent of daughters going into the eighth grade, I would contemplate sending my kids to private school, so you might lose more children than gain because it’s a safety concern.”

“I believe it would be about nine classrooms at the middle level that would move to the high school,” said Superintendent Rebecca Kidwell. “That doesn’t necessarily mean taking up nine classrooms from the high school because the high school doesn’t have nine classrooms to give.”

Kidwell added that “reconfigurating to a lower elementary and an upper elementary doesn’t free up as much space as we like it to because we’re also aiming to maintain small class sizes. Taking action prior to 2026/2027 would be to our benefit.”

A 10 classroom addition to Aitken was completed in 2021. Voters approved $10.5 million at a 2019 town meeting for the project. 

Committee chair Robert Gerardi believes moving Grades 5 through 8 as a “short-term solution” and a new school building as a possible “long-term solution.”  “We’re going to be having a lot of increasing enrollment,” Gerardi noted. “A lot of middle schools encompass five through eight. It can be any range so even though I know there are community concerns, the New England League of Middle Schools considers fifth grade very appropriate for middle schools. There might be some unintended benefits of shifting fifth and eighth (grades).”

Another possibility is using the North School, which Gerardi said was “ideally situated.” Kidwell acknowledged “there are parts of the building that are acceptable.”