A show of hands at the end of Monday night's meeting in the Salem School multipurpose room was a clear indicator that most residents in Salem want to keep their seventh- and eighth-grade students in town.

Currently, the towns of Salem and East Lyme have an agreement for high school students in Salem to attend East Lyme High School. An efficiency study conducted by New England-based accounting agency BlumShapiro and presented in June suggested that the town should also consider converting Salem School into a pre-K-6 school and sending seventh- and eighth-grade students to East Lyme Middle School.

Superintendent Joseph Onofrio II said the idea had come up informally in talks with East Lyme over the upcoming high school cooperative agreement, as both towns are experiencing declining enrollments. The idea was more seriously considered after the BlumShapiro study, which estimated the cost of the move to be around $399,000 in the first year. The town also calculated the cost with updated numbers and estimated the move to be closer to $791,000.

Survey results from the study indicated that residents and parents were concerned that students may not have access to enough opportunities in Salem such as extracurricular activities and classes such as foreign language and technical arts programs. Supporters of the plan also suggested that seventh- and eighth-graders may not be as mature or prepared as East Lyme students when they reach the high school.

Resident Suzanne Gendron said she was less than pleased with the price tag of the plan, and even the lower estimate would never pass the Board of Finance, but she fears that both the town and the students will miss out on opportunities without a stronger partnership with East Lyme.

"We have 50 homes on the market right now, so we have a very transient student population," she said. "Why are kids coming in and not staying? Is it because we don't have those Gifted and Talented and extracurricular programs that East Lyme has put in place?"

Mary Ann Pudimat, vice-chair of the Board of Education and chairwoman of the Long-Range Educational Planning Subcommittee, presented the board's progress on the issues addressed by the efficiency study and answered questions from the audience. She said the size of Salem School – about 400 students from preschool through eighth grade – had been both an advantage and disadvantage in the survey responses.

"There are leadership opportunities that you get when you have the little kids around," she said, citing the fall festival and the reading buddy and community service programs at the school. "But are we babying our seventh- and eighth-graders? Should we be letting them mature and go to a bigger school and be in a bigger world and have to compete for a spot? Is it too early to teach kids that sometimes you don't win, that showing up doesn't always get you a ribbon?"

Opponents of the measure, which included almost everyone in attendance at Monday night's meeting and Tuesday morning's Salem Seniors meeting in the school library, said Salem School has more than adequately prepared students for success at the high school. Seventh- and eighth-grade students scored higher on both the math and English/language arts SBAC than East Lyme students, and Salem students are often prominent members of East Lyme High School sport teams and clubs, they said.

Third-grade teacher Nicole Hecklinger said her own children came through Salem School and were prepared not only for East Lyme High School but also college and their careers.

"I'm looking at this as 'Were my kids prepared? Are my kids successful?' And my answer is yes," she said. Hecklinger said her older son paid off his student loans at 26, and she spoke with her younger son before the meeting and asked his opinion on the move. "He said, 'Why would they want to do that?' So that was from a child that came up through who is now 22."

The Long-Range Educational Planning Subcommittee will meet Nov. 16 to discuss the community input and will give a recommendation to the Board of Education at its Dec. 7 meeting.

a.hutchinson@theday.com

Twitter: @ahutch411