New Arrangements to Address Turmoil at Fort River School. School Committee Selects Finalists for New School Names, Debates Reconsidering Sixth Grade Move to Middle School

Report on the Meeting of the Amherst School Committee, November 18, 2025

The meeting was held in the library of Amherst Regional High School, was simulcast on Amherst Media Channel 15 and was recorded.  

Present
Jennifer Shiao (Chair), Bridget Hynes, Deb Leonard, Sarah Marshall, and Irv Rhodes.

What’s the difference between the Amherst School Committee, the Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee, and the Union 26 Schools Committee?  Look HERE.

Highlights

• The New Mix-It-Up Program at Fort River Elementary
• Public Comment
• Superintendent’s Update 
• Naming the New Elementary School and Sixth-Grade Academy
• Vote to Discuss Sixth-Grade Move and Possible Alternatives
• First Quarter FY26 Budget Report
• Adopting Superintendent’s Goals
  

The New Fifth-Grade Mix-It-Up Program at Fort River Elementary
On October 29, 2025, Superintendent E. Xiomara Herman (Dr. Xi) sent a letter to Fort River Elementary School families announcing an organizational change in the fifth-grade classes at Fort River, designed to address concerns that had been raised throughout the term about the educational experience and safety of fifth-grade students at the school.

The new arrangement, which went  into effect on November 5, adopts a departmentalized model that builds on the successful “Mix-It-Up Specials” framework. This new approach enables all fifth-grade students to rotate through the three existing fifth-grade classrooms, offering opportunities to learn with a broader range of peers while preparing them for middle school. Dr Xi said that the model will directly address the concerns that have been raised, and  prioritizes student needs and equitable access to instruction in all decisions. All fifth-grade students will be evenly distributed across three groups, ensuring that students with IEPs are proportionally represented and removing the previous imbalance within the “Explorers” class setup. 

Public Comment
The committee received six public comments via email: one on the elementary school district boundaries, one on lead-testing results, two on the Fort River fifth-grade cohort, and two on the Caminantes dual-language program. They can be read here.

Two parents offered extended in-person comments, requesting action from the School Committee and Superintendent. These comments are posted below. Parent Jennifer Curiale reported that the Mix-It-Up program is not working for all and that many serious problems in the Fort River fifth-grade classes persist. Parent Ellen Jedry Guidera asked the Amherst School Committee (ASC) to convene a special committee or task force to look at educational inequities within the Caminantes dual-language program and pathways for making it, and other programs, fully accessible.

Jennifer Curiale, parent of a student in Caminantes with an IEP (individual education plan) said:

I want to make sure that no one really comes away from this meeting thinking that the Mix-It-Up plan only produced positive results. While the Mix-t-Up plan may have helped some students, and I’m sure that it has, it has also harmed others. 

Obviously, I’m not going to speak about any particular students tonight. This is a public forum, so I’ll speak in generalities, but this plan was a hasty, knee-jerk reaction to a chronic problem at Fort River. I want to make sure that no narrative is spun that the problems at Fort River were somehow magically solved. They were not. 

Many of the practices and approaches at Fort River continue to cause dysregulation, loss of education, and harm to students.

The practices and approaches at Fort River continue to cause dysregulation, loss of education, and harm to students. If we don’t take a deep dive into the factors that have led us to where we are today, I fear that we are doomed to repeat the many problems that have plagued Fort River at the new school building and thus harm a whole new group of kids. Dysregulation and class evacuations have become so normalized at Fort River that we don’t even question it anymore. It’s like a regular Tuesday. I can only imagine that some of the problems have to do with funding and where we choose to put our money and others are related to training and outdated practices. But accountability, I think, is required to change and to move forward. 

As a parent, I keep hearing excuses, false narratives, and messages that don’t really have much meaning or substance behind them. As a school committee, I really encourage you to really ask the following questions: Are there students who are currently, right now, struggling to adapt to the Mix-iIt

-p plan and who are losing educational time as a result? How long has building leadership known about the problems in the fifth-grade Explorers class and why did they wait until after the school year started to address it? At a meeting recently, Dr. Xi mentioned that a parent came to her over the summer and impressed upon her the significance of the problems in that particular cohort. Why did it take a parent to apprise the superintendent of the situation? Isn’t it the job of building leadership to report problems and advocate for meaningful solutions? 

At this point, as a parent, I’m not even angry anymore. All I can do is grieve the loss of the elementary school experience and education that my child did not get. I hope that we make significant changes so that no other group of students needs to suffer the way this particular cohort has. I cannot believe this was my child’s elementary school experience. It’s not fair to him or to any other students at Fort River. 

Ellen Jedry Guidera, speaking on behalf of the steering committee of the Special Education Parent Advisory Committee (SEPAC), said:

First, I just wanted to ask again if we could possibly make these meetings accessible remotely to families. It would be really helpful. It’s  hard for us to get here, especially with kids, so, if they were accessible remotely, we’d appreciate it.

I wanted to bring your attention tonight to two issues for SEPAC: the need for data on the effectiveness of the Mix-It-Up program at Fort River and the issues of inclusion and accessibility in our dual-language program for students with disabilities who are enrolled at Caminantes.

Last week we spoke together about inclusion as a cornerstone principle of arts educational programming. We also spoke about our special education students and who they are: they are athletes, they’re honor students, they’re musicians, they are students reflecting diverse backgrounds who speak more than just English, who are bilingual learners, and are students who would like to be bi-literate or become bilingual learners.

Since 2019, many students have found opportunity in Caminantes. The program is a tremendous asset to our district.

However, students with disabilities have faced significant challenges accessing Caminantes for several years now. To make Caminantes truly inclusive, we need to move beyond just allowing access to students with disabilities and move toward guaranteeing support. Access without support is not inclusion. It’s setting students up to fail. Special education services have not been fully integrated into the bilingual model, leaving students with learning differences at a significant disadvantage. 

SEPAC has heard from several families who have removed their children from this program due to their needs not being met. We’ve also heard from families within the program who feel their students have been educationally left behind as their special education needs have not been provided in a way that would allow them to access bilingual education.

Students with learning disabilities or who are neuro-divergent learners require specialized support to access bilingual education. We cannot rely on monolingual special education support in a bilingual setting. Special education support services must mirror the language of instruction to prevent learning gaps. When these supports are not provided, many parents opt out and instead enroll in Explorers or choice out to other public schools or charters. The lack of appropriate supports accounts for why you see more students with IEPs in Explorers. It’s a choice students with disabilities and families have been forced to make.

Recently, we were informed that a district administrator expressed that Caminantes should not be accessible to all students. We were shocked and reached out to the Spanish immersion program in Holyoke to ask if a student with, say, a reading disability, would be barred from being part of their Spanish immersion program. They stated no, that the student would receive specialized reading instruction in both languages. Denying a child access to their heritage language or the benefits of bilingualism because of a disability is discriminatory and it does not reflect educational best practices or federal law. 

The Holyoke School District recognizes that bilingual support services are an essential component to our dual-language program. Why doesn’t Amherst? In addition, a robust, accessible, and truly inclusive dual-anguage program would be an incredible draw for our district and help keep our students here. Caminantes has been said to have stopped the hemorrhaging, to quote a recent meeting. With truly accessible programming, we could not only stem the flow, but increase our students and get our students back. We therefore urge you to ensure that dual-language instruction is made accessible to all students. 

We ask that you convene a committee or a task force to fully understand the complexities of special education in a dual-language setting and to ensure that data are collected to fully monitor students in the Caminantes program and ensure that all students are learning, especially with a huge transition next year to a new school. We ask you to invest in Caminantes to make it fully accessible and to be on par with Holyoke and other dual language programs. 

Regarding Mix-It-Up for the students in the Fort River fifth grade: e’ve heard a variety of different perspectives from specialeducation families and both Explorers and Caminantes also that the program really hasn’t been in effect very long  and we need to make a determination now as to its successor challenges. It’s early. Therefore we’d like to ask what questions are being asked to determine the overall effectiveness of this program. What data are actively being collected now and what data will be used as a baseline? And lastly, we would like assurance that the district will be collecting data for any restraints, seclusions, and evacuations on a daily basis in all of the bilingual and monolingual classrooms and that those data will be shared with concerned parties.

Superintendent Update
Dr. Xi provided an update on the 5^th-grade classes at Fort River and on the K-6 restructuring.

She praised the collaboration among district leadership, school leadership, staff, and families for implementing the new Mix-It-Up model for the 5^th grade at Fort River (see above).

Sarah Marshall asked about data tracking. Were the number of evacuations or number of days where restraints were employed tracked, are they being tracked now, and has there been any change since implementing Mix-It-Up or is there any way to measure the impact of the new program?

Dr Xi indicated that there are data that can be accessed to assess the impacts, though she didn’t have those data at hand.

Hynes indicated that she would like access to those data, asking how the six weeks from the start of the school year with evacuations, seclusions, and restraints compared with six weeks into the new program? Hynes asked, in light of public comments made about Caminantes and Mix-It-Up, that the school committee walk through those issues at a different time and confirm and clarify what is happening from a district view. And Leonard asked for clarification about supporting students’ needs and the availability of necessary para-educators.

Dr. Xi  emphasized that students are now receiving the supports that they need. If a student is supposed to have a one-on-one support, that one-on-one support is there. “The required para-educators are still there,” she said. “It’s not that we’re taking away from the students what is outlined in their IEP’s. These are additional supports that were brought in to support the class from the beginning of the school year and assigned to ensure that the class could operate. We’re just continuing with those supports. There are some individuals who have brought some concerns forward. Those are being addressed.”

Irv Rhodes said he had visited Fort River recently and said that while some of the criticisms that are circulating are warranted, he wanted to share that he was struck by the number of adults in the classrooms and the rich learning environments that he saw there. “I have no qualms about the efforts of the Fort River staff and teachers and paraprofessionals in terms of providing an excellent educational environment for our children, “ he said.

Regarding the 6^th Grade Move to the Middle School, Dr. Xi noted that the move entails a lot of logistical challenges. She said that now that the new school boundaries have been approved,  she is anxious to finalize the exact staff placements for next year. The goal is to have these finalized by March (when the budget is finalized) but ideally with notifications going out to staff in February.

Deb Leonard asked for more information on the floor plan for the 6^th grade within the Middle School Building and Dr. Xi said this is still not finalized and that she would follow up with the committee.

Read the full restructuring update here.

Naming the New Elementary School
The ASC reviewed a list of finalists for new names chosen by the Naming Subcommittee. The considered names that were submitted to the subcommittee in addition to suggestions collected at the Wildwood and Fort River open houses earlier in the Fall. 

Wild River Elementary School was the overwhelming favorite at the open houses, receiving twice as many votes as the second choice, Amethyst Brook Elementary School. Joining these suggestions among the five finalists were Emily Dickinson Elementary School, Nonotuck Elementary School and Riverwood Elementary School. Read rationales for the nominees here.

Naming the Sixth-Grade Academy
The subcommittee selected three finalists for the name of the new sixth-grade academy:

Amethyst Brook School (or Academy)
Nonotuck School (or Academy)
Chestnut Street School (or Academy)
Emily Dickinson School (or Academy)
Sixth Grade Odyssey

Several suggestions included the word academy in the name, and there was some question as to whether the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) allows the word academy in the name of a non-secondary school or non-specialized school. Both Shiao and Dr. Xi looked into it and determined that there are no Massachusetts laws governing how a district names its schools and that DESE seems to defer to localities. But Dr. Xi said she would look into it further.

The ASC will vote on names for the new schools at their Dec.19 meeting. The naming subcommittee will create a form to distribute within the elementary schools community for input to be provided by Dec. 16, making clear that this is not a ballot (the ASC will make the final choices) but a request for feedback. The committee will seek the assistance of the town’s communications director in distributing the form.

Revisiting the Decision to Locate the Sixth Grade
Leonard recounted the history of the decision to make the new elementary school K-5 and to create a sixth-grade academy to be located at the Middle School for all Amherst 6^th graders. Those discussions began in 2021 with multiple school committees and three superintendents contributing to the process, moving the proposal forward at every step. Nonetheless, Leonard observed that no school committee has reviewed the complete process that produced the current situation for the imminent move and she thought it would be worthwhile to revisit the financial constraints, the enrollment issues, and the logistical and programmatic challenges entailed in the long and involved process. She said that there are no other stand-alone sixth grade academies anywhere in Massachusetts and thought that, given the unique situation that the district is confronting, it would be worthwhile to have a conversation about the path the town has taken.

She moved to put on the agenda for the December 16 meeting of the ASC a discussion and possible vote to have Amherst 6^th graders attend school at an alternative location to the middle school.

Hynes spoke in support of the motion, saying that we appear to have almost four classrooms of swing space at the new school and Crocker Farm, which ought to give us enough room to accommodate our 144  6^th graders next year. She said that she remains confused about the educational purpose of the decisions that were made and whether they serve our students as well as  they could.

Marshall opposed the motion, saying that all of the previous school committees and three superintendents involved with this decision have been consistent in moving forward with this model and they have received and considered lots of input in the process. Looking at what seems to be available space doesn’t meet the need for flexibility or the possibility that we might be able to bring back some of the students whom we have lost to charters and private schools. Marshall termed the proposed discussion counterproductive.

Irv Rhodes said such a discussion may well be counterproductive and wondered whether a reconsideration at this late date would be practical or even possible. But he concluded that having the discussion may resonate with segments of our community and he didn’t see any harm in talking.

Shiao reiterated that the decision was the result of a long and involved process and it was deliberative. She said she originally declined to put the item on the agenda, but  then discussed the democratic nature of the committee with Leonard and agreed that the committee had the right to overrule the chair. 

She asked, “Will we have this discussion at our Dec 13 meeting? I think that there is something to be lost by putting it on the agenda and what could be lost is the confidence of the community. I think it’s too late to be having this, to be deliberating on these decisions again. And I’m not saying it’s too late because it’s November. I’m saying it’s too late because it’s 2025, because a lot of these decisions take months and years of planning, and that work has been done over the past months and years. To now change course—it’s not the kind of school committee I want to be on., for us to make this change and then sort of hand it down to the superintendent, for us to decide and then tell the superintendent this is what you should do, when in reality it should be something that we work together on over many months and years, which is what happened in fact between the previous superintendents and the previous school committees who worked on this together.”

Marshall said, “supporting this motion says we are willing to entertain the idea of putting the 6^th graders someplace else, and the kids are already used to the idea (of moving to the Middle School) I think to vote yes on this motion creates the possibility of  severe disruption to the work of the administration just as they’re getting budget season underway.”

Hynes felt there were financial implications that favor reconsideration of the move.
“Are we going to pay rent at the middle school and pay all the costs of running a separate school with a separate staff versus the people who we know are doing a good job for our students now in the spaces they’re in?” she asked. She added, “I’m not advocating to change the plan but to have a discussion.”

Leonard agreed that it was not her intention to impose a decision on the administration but just to have a discussion.

But Dr. Xi found the proposal unsettling, saying that “the motion was a bit
blindsiding for her team,  a surprise plan to change work that has been done.” She pointed out that staff needs to know soon where they are going to be and under what arrangements they will be working. She said that she was not consulted about this motion and would view it as a top-down decision imposed on the school administration by the School Committee.

The motion to add the discussion to the next meeting agenda passed  3-2 (with Shiao and Marshall dissenting).

Budget Report
Finance Director Shannon Bernacchia presented the budget report for the first quarter of FY26. The report stated: “Overall, the district’s financial activity for the first quarter of FY26 is largely on track. Salaried payroll is trending slightly below typical quarterly expectations due to the timing of staff returning in August, though recent staffing shifts at the elementary level have required some additional personnel adjustments. As we move into the second quarter, a clearer picture of FY26 spending patterns and budget performance will begin to take shape. “

Superintendent’s Goals
The Superintendent’s  Goals for 2026 were voted on at the Regional School Committee meeting in November 10 and were approved unanimously (5-0) by the ASC at this meeting.