WEST SPRINGFIELD – Students and faculty at Tatham Elementary School will soon have a little more room to breathe. The finishing touches are being put on four new modular classrooms that have been brought in to address the school’s swelling enrollment.

Built in 1952, Tatham Elementary School serves grades one through five. Historically, Tatham has had two classrooms for each grade. The crowding worsened last year, Principal Kate Morneau said, when the number of current third-grade students expanded and necessitated the third class. Because Tatham’s total enrollment stands at 260 students, there are now three classes in the first, third and fifth grades and there is not enough room.

Currently, Morneau said, students from three fifth–grade classes are split between two classrooms. A third teacher spends half the week co–teaching each class.

Classrooms aren’t the only areas feeling the squeeze. The school’s “library” consists of 30 feet of tall bookcases lining both sides of the main corridor of the school. Students receive reading intervention while sitting at a desk in the hall and specialist classes, such as art, are taught from mobile carts. A counselor from Springfield’s Behavioral Health Network has been using the principal’s office to counsel students.

“There is no privacy,” Morneau said. She praised the teachers and faculty at Tatham for their patience with the overcrowding situation.

"Everybody has been incredibly flexible and professional in sharing their space,” Morneau said.

Different solutions to the overcrowding have been discussed, including redistricting. Assistant Superintendent Kevin McQuillan explained that redistricting has a lot of disruption that comes with it. He said it also leads to a “domino effect” in which students from one school move to another, which leads to overcrowding there, and other students from that school must the move to another one and so on.

Ten years ago, McQuillan said that the school district explored the idea of putting an addition on Tatham to address the foreseen future crowding. At the time, it was determined to be cost-prohibitive. He said it would be even more so today.

Instead, the modular units were brought in to house classes.

Morneau said the school committee approved the project in roughly February 2019 and prep work was begun in the existing building. The modular units were delivered on Sept. 25 and put in place by crane in the first week of October. The seven individual parts have since been welded and joined into a long rectangular building that runs behind the main school.

Facing the modulars, students will enter the building by a ramp on the left–hand side. Looking down the long central hallway, there is a classroom on either side. In the center of the building, there are two staff bathrooms and two multi-stall student bathrooms. At the end of the hallway, two more classrooms sit across for one another.

The classrooms are slightly larger than those inside the main building and have natural light from several windows. Each classroom will have interactive whiteboards and there will be a Chromebook cart for use by students.

The modulars will house the classrooms for the three fifth-grade classes and one third-grade class. One of the reasons they chose to move the upper grades, Morneau said, is because it will be easier for them to make transitions between the buildings for lunch, gym and special classes.

“We’re trying to make it feel like a campus rather than our building and their building,” Morneau said, which is why the outside of the new building has been painted to resemble the main school to create a visually cohesive look.

“A lot of electrical work power, lights, data, intercom systems and alarm systems,” is being finished, McQuillan said.

He said the school district had hoped that they would be moving in last week, however, site plan issues involving the easement around water source that passes Tatham caused the move-in date to be pushed forward. The current move-in date could be as late as Nov. 15, though McQuillan said it may be earlier.

Although the modulars are physically separated from the school by about 30 feet to allow emergency vehicle access, McQuillan said that a beefed-up security system is being installed with cameras that cover all angles.

Morneau said the students will be buzzed into the entrances as they transition to and from the main building and the modulars. She said that, at first, teachers will accompany the students between buildings but after it becomes routine the students will be able to transition on their own.

“The biggest benefit is going to give the students space. It doesn't just impact the students moving into the modulars,” but also those in the main building, Morneau said.

Three classrooms will be freed up by the move. Those rooms will then be used to house the library and the specialists rather than squeezing into their classrooms. It will also allow the reading interventionists at the school to pull students into a separate, quiet room.

The school department is doing an enrollment study that McQuillan said should be ready by the end of the year. That study will drive future enrollment planning.

The enrollment in West Springfield Public Schools has been increasing for eight school years. The district has not taken new student-choice students in two years, McQuillan said, due to the ballooning enrollment. He said Mittineague Elementary School student enrollment is higher than ever and another teacher was recently added to the faculty at Memorial Elementary School.

There are currently modulars at John Ashley Kindergarten that are approximately 17 years old. McQuillan said they will need to look at options, including replacing them.

While McQuillan doesn't think Tatham will need more modular classrooms in the future, he did say it may be an option for other elementary schools that are seeing expanding enrollment. He called the modulars, “a safety valve to relieve pressure.”