GFMS Principals Update School Board on Middle School Reconfiguration
George Fisher Middle School’s (GFMS) two principals updated Carmel’s Board of Education last week on the progress of their reconfiguration project, which was implemented nearly four months ago. Beginning with the 2012—2013, the administration sought to create a unique environment and experience by separating fifth and sixth graders from seventh and eighth graders.
Principals Ed Lopresti (5-6) and William Manfredonia (7-8) said students are separated both within the building and in terms of curriculum and staff, which will make for a more tailored learning experience.
“What we’ve accomplished here in a very, very short period of time has been phenomenal in my eyes—I think we absolutely took the right direction here in scaling back the larger structure into two smaller, more manageable, more personal and more accessible schools,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. James Ryan said at the board’s Jan. 8 meeting.
The goal of the reconfiguration was to downsize teaching efforts into two smaller units, with the fifth and sixth grade school acting as a doorway to the next level of learning and the seventh and eighth grade school providing a doorstep and proper preparation to high school.
Though Lopresti and Manfredonia admitted the reconfiguration hasn’t had enough time to fully develop to bare any sort of tangible result, they’ve seen noticeable differences in the classroom, as well as how staff is effectively interacting with students.
“It’s the face-to-face contact with the students you see every day, and the smaller learning communities really have allowed for that whereas the larger 5 to 8 configuration made that much more difficult, if not impossible, for that to happen,” Lopresti said.
Manfredonia praised teachers for their cooperation with the new configuration and said the move benefited them just as much as it did students.
“Part of the problem with George Fischer in the past was our teachers were really split… Our teachers were divided and they didn’t know if they really belonged to a grade, a team or a department,” Manfredonia said. “What’s happened now is that our teachers clearly belong to a department.”
Despite the split, both administrators agreed that GFMS still contains a solid culture shared amongst all students, regardless of whether students and faculty are separated.
“The stories and activities that are coming out of the school are very rich and deep in terms of the performance levels that are being accomplished there,” Ryan said.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
