Parents: Hunking plight is 'disruptive'

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January 27, 2012

By Paul Tennant ptennant@eagletribune.com The Eagle Tribune Fri Jan 27, 2012, 02:35 AM EST

HAVERHILL — Parents and students are thoroughly dissatisfied with what they call the "disruption" to learning at Hunking Middle School.

More than a dozen parents, along with a few students, attended last night's School Committee meeting to express their complaints.

The entire sixth grade at Hunking, which serves Bradford students, was moved to Bartlett School on Washington Street in October because a section of the building was in danger of collapsing, according to engineers hired by the city.

Hunking students are unable to check out books at their school because the library is now being used as a classroom, according to Dianne Duckworth, mother of a Hunking eighth-grader.

Seventh- and eighth-graders have music classes in their homerooms "with minimal resources" while sixth-graders use the stage, she said. Band practice is now held on the stage in the cafeteria because the music room is used as a special education classroom, she added.

"Although we realize that this emergency situation is temporary, I don't think anyone should be fooled into thinking it is not disruptive to learning," she said.

Dena Papanikolaou, mother of a Hunking sixth-grader, said she and other parents want their children to have "the same educational opportunities as other kids."

Many students, she said, "feel they're being warehoused."

Several parents noted the administration initially predicted Hunking sixth-graders would be at Bartlett School until March. Superintendent James Scully recently said they'll have to stay there for the rest of the year.

Scully told The Eagle-Tribune last night he expects by Tuesday to have "definitive answers" from engineers on how much it will cost to shore up Hunking Middle School, which was constructed in 1959.

The engineers have already told him that "we have to shore up that building" even if students are not attending classes there, he said.

Scully told the School Committee it would be prudent to do the work during the summer, when the building is not being used.

School Committee member Paul Magliocchetti suggested the administration consider renting portable classrooms, but Scully said that would be more expensive. Mayor James Fiorentini said he is opposed to that alternative.

Last month, the city filed a statement of interest with the Massachusetts School Building Authority, the first step in getting financial help from the state in building a new Hunking. Fiorentini said last night he is "confident" Haverhill will obtain that funding.

The state's share, however, will probably be no more than 70 percent, officials have estimated. The rest will have to come from the city.

Haverhill's share would probably have to come from a Proposition 2 1/2 debt exclusion measure, approved by local voters. That's how the city built its four newest elementary schools, Silver Hill, Golden Hill, Pentucket Lake and Bradford, in the early 1990s.

Kelly Valaskatgis, president of Haverhill Parents Shaping Our Schools, urged officials to "let parents know the truth" — that if the city does not build a new Hunking Middle School and the present building continues to deteriorate, students in Bradford will eventually have to be divided among the other three middle schools.

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