November 4, 2014
Dear Parents:
I notified you in late October of the Salem School Board’s decision to close Haigh School and realign neighborhoods to balance enrollments between five elementary schools. I worked with a group of parents and others for many weeks to develop a solution to the realignment puzzle. We posted information, including a map, indicating neighborhood changes and promised more information soon.
We have posted two community maps (see box to the right). One depicts the new neighborhood boundaries for each of the five elementary schools, and the other is a large town map of Salem. I received several comments regarding the difficulty individuals were having reading the map provided with the PowerPoint presentation. To address this, our transportation coordinator worked with First Student to develop what we hope will be a clearer depiction of neighborhood boundaries. Just in case, however, we are providing a map without the drawn boundaries in the event some street names are hidden by or are hard to read as a result of the boundary markings.
In addition to the maps, we are providing a list of streets impacted by the five school decision (see box to the right). Many students, and not just those attending Haigh, will be changing schools. Moving to a new school will bring sadness and perhaps some anger. Children are incredibly resilient and strong if you allow them to demonstrate their strength. Those students who change schools will experience an opportunity to learn about themselves and will adapt more easily than you might expect. However, as a parent you have tremendous influence on your child’s emotions and capacity to withstand change.
I stated in a previous letter that I’ll be working with the school principals and others to plan springtime activities designed to alleviate anxiety about a change. We will do what we can to help children to become familiar with a new school and relieve some of their concerns.
Sincerely,
Michael W. Delahanty, Ed.D.
Superintendent
The following files provide lists and map views of reassignment decisions.
If the PowerPoint presentation below does not show, please click here to view in an new window.