Next school year, kindergarteners from McAnnulty Elementary School will attend class at Baldwin High School.
The move is needed because McAnnulty is set for a complete building renovation project over the span of the 2026-27 school year. It is expected that kindergarten classes will return to McAnnulty the next school year.
“They ideally spend the entire school year here,” Co-Principal Brandon Whitfield said. “Then they move back into McAnnulty to start the following year.”
The only alternative would have been to have McAnnulty teachers frequently moving to other classrooms at McAnnulty as the construction work progressed, which is not conducive to learning, McAnnulty Principal Patricia Fusco said.
“This was a unanimous decision that was made by the entire McAnnulty staff without hesitation,” Fusco said. “Kindergarteners need a learning environment that is consistent.”
The high school has the most untapped space available, and some middle school grades previously were based here for several years during renovations at Harrison Middle School. So it is the most suitable place for McAnnulty to move into.
“We have the extra space here at the high school,” Co-Principal John Saras said. “Plus, the model was already set with the middle school here.”
The high school environment will allow for a distraction-free zone for the kindergarteners to learn most effectively, Fusco said.
“With our ELA program, CKLA, the students need to be explicitly taught to hear crisp sounds of letters, produce those sounds, then blend them to make words to begin the reading process,” Fusco said. “Most importantly, with the type of instruction that is being delivered to our kindergarteners, we need their undivided attention.”
District and building administrators have already started to reach out to parents of next year’s kindergartners to explain the move.
McAnnulty teachers are tentatively scheduled to be moved into the first floor’s English, world language, and social studies classrooms. The atriums, computer labs, and piano lab, though, will remain in use by high school teachers and students for classes and Highlander Time sessions.
The relocated high school teachers will move to available rooms on the second and third floors, with room sharing a possibility.
“It all comes down to scheduling logistics,” Saras said.
McAnnulty administration, meanwhile, will have a designated area separate from the high school administration team.
The district is planning to build an outside play place at the high school, likely in the central parking lot, to enhance the experience for the kindergartners.
“It will not be a playground, but an area so students have a space to get their ‘wiggles’ out and be free,” Fusco said.
The additional outdoor space can be reworked for high school use after the kindergarteners leave the following year, Whitfield said.
“We create that outdoor play space for the kindergarteners for next year,” Whitfield said. “Then, we transition it into something that will be useful for the high school kids in the following years.”
The outdoor space is one step in the process to “reimagine the central parking lot,” Saras said. A final decision on the issue has not been made, but there should not be an impact on student or staff parking, Saras said.
Administrators are working to keep the younger students separate from the high school students next year. Kindergarteners will have a dedicated entrance on the first floor to avoid stairwells and for ease of access for parents’ pick-up and drop-off. Bathroom breaks will be supervised and structured.
“Whole class bathroom breaks will be done twice a day with the teacher present,” Fusco said. “When it is not a designated bathroom break, we will have adult support to help them.”
Scheduling should help minimize unwanted interactions. The high school day starts substantially earlier than it does at McAnnulty, and because of the fewer transition periods between block periods for high school students, random encounters will be kept to a minimum.
“We will be in class at the regular time, and they will come in,” Whitfield said. “It’s the same thing for leaving – we will leave, then they will leave after us.”
Still, kindergartners enjoy some interaction with older students, Fusco said, so activities in kindergarten classrooms by high schoolers are not off the table.
“Our littles absolutely love when the bigs come to visit,” Fusco said. “We want to do everything we can to continue to foster these relationships and programs next year.”
There are positive initiatives that can result from the kindergarten being in the high school, with a mentorship program in the works, Whitfield said.
History teacher Chris Reilsono and Whitfield “have been trying to strum up this mentorship idea between high school and elementary school kids,” Whitfield said. “It’s something that we’re going to get off the ground this semester, where high school kids will essentially go down and be a mentor for students who may need it.”
In addition to mentoring, there may be opportunities for students with free blocks, early departure, or late arrivals to provide other roles in the school day.
“We can maybe have some hall monitors, an assistant for students going from a classroom to the nurse’s office, early dismissals, during lunches, during recesses, and more,” Saras said.
Transportation should remain largely unchanged, though bus attendants may be added.
“Kindergarten will have their own buses with the possibility of bus attendants in place,” Fusco said. “We are still working through all of the details.”
For kindergarteners, the small gym and cafeteria will be available for the regularly scheduled lunch, recess, and gym encore times. However, music and their “innovation station” will be moved into classrooms.
The district is working to make this a positive experience for all students, Fusco said.
“It doesn’t matter where we are,” Fusco said. “We have the best teachers, hands down, and I can with 100% confidence say that they will take care of your child as if they were their own.”
Kindergarteners moving in has positives for the high school students as well.
“Any situation that’s given to us here, we’re going to try and make the best of it. So bring the kindergarteners on, and we are going to make more effective learning opportunities for our students,” Whitfield said.
