Four Chilmark School grades — two at a time — are being temporarily relocated to the Chilmark Community Center to allow for finishing interior work in Chilmark School classrooms.
The interior work, part of the school’s HVAC project, follows ductwork from this summer.
Chilmark School’s kindergartners and first graders are currently learning in the Community Center, and will attend school there through the week starting Oct. 9.
Second and third graders will learn in the community center from Oct. 16 to 27.
As the students relocate, workers will complete finishing interior details in their classrooms.
“It’s going pretty well,” says Principal Susan Stevens of the 31 coexisting kindergartners and first graders. “We ended up setting them all up as one group in six tables on the left, and one group in six tables on the right.”
Stevens adds that the current arrangement has offered some benefits to the learning experience. “In the morning, [when students] pick an activity, they can do either side — they can be with friends in or not in their class. This doesn’t normally happen in the different rooms.”
Stevens also reports good behavior. “With the amount of kids there, they’ve been doing a good job of working quietly,” she said.
The principal does note that given the temporary arrangement, teachers have had to more strictly preplan their lessons. “[Teachers had to] figure out what materials they had to use — we don’t want them running back and forth. They had to take some time to figure out what they had to study, what they had to read, and figure that out a little in advance.”
For moving classroom materials to the community center, HVAC project manager Michael Owen has secured the work of Carroll’s Martha’s Vineyard.
