Once again, the single section issue has arisen at Upham Elementary school.  The Upham community effected change to the student enrollment policy (Policy JG) in 2019 to end single sections, and yet the conversation continues. 

The School Committee must make it clear to the administration that they need to keep Upham healthy.  It is unfair to our children for Bates to be maintained as a healthy, thriving school while letting Upham struggle.  WPS is supposed to provide equal education (a different type of equity) for all of our children, but instead Upham has been used as a political tool, put in situations that are well-documented to be disadvantageous for our children. 

This is not a budget issue.  The Select Board, Advisory and Town Meeting voted and approved the School budget for the coming year, of which two sections at Upham were included. 

The Upham district has the fewest number of households from which we can pull students to fill our building.  Bates district is the next closest and has almost 300 more households.

We are demanding that the School Committee and thereby School Administration:

1.     Maintain two HEALTHY sections per grade level, roughly equivalent in size to those of other WPS elementary schools, especially in light of the needs of our Skills program’s reliance on general education students being part of the classroom. 

2.     Utilize creative ways to keep our Upham community healthy through the point of a new school build through the use of:

a.     Buffer zones – bring in Bates and Sprague students from areas surrounding Upham

b.     Schools serving specific grade levels (Upham K-1, Bates 2-5 or Upham 4,5, Bates K-3), as was the solution used in the 1970s/80s.  This would leave us with nicely-sized classes of 19 students per section at the kindergarten grade level.

We need your support now!  Please sign this petition to let WPS know that we are not going to accept single sections at Upham.