Salem Superintendent Looks To Shift Middle School Out Of Saltonstall
SALEM, MA — Salem middle school grades will move out of the Saltonstall School and consolidate at the Collins Middle School as part of a plan that Superintendent Steve Zrike said he intends to put forth to the School Committee on Monday.
"We are proposing a phase-out of the middle school there beginning next fall," Zrike said in his Facebook session with the community on Thursday. "I did share two different proposals. One, for a phase-out over three years so that anybody who is already in middle school can finish, or one where the entire middle school moves to Collins beginning with the next (2025-26) school year.
"It's a middle school that's definitely had a really strong history and there are a lot of folks who are very tied to the experience that they have had at Saltonstall so we really want to hear from those people."
Zrike said a letter will go out to Saltonstall families on Friday with additional information, a survey to solicit more input, and an invitation to attend a virtual forum next week on the specific reasons behind the proposal.
According to the Salem Public Schools website, Collins Middle School has a student population of 704 students in grades 6, 7 and 8 with 34 percent of students who do not speak English as their first language, are 68 percent high needs and 54 percent economically disadvantaged.
Saltonstall School is a K-8 school with about 400 students total. That school's site does not provide a demographic breakdown of the student body.
In other Salem schools news pertinent to middle school students and their parents, Zrike said that only middle school students accompanied by an adult will be permitted to enter Friday night's Salem High School homecoming football game.
Zrike cited the large Homecoming crowds at the game and the general chaos of the Halloween crowds traveling through the Witch City on what is expected to be a very nice Friday night as the reasons behind that decision.
"We've often, this year and the last few years, found that we've had a lot of middle schools who don't necessarily come to watch the game," Zrike said. "That does result in challenges in terms of supervising and the event."
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at X/Twitter:
