Parents urge Quincy School Committee to return fifth grade to elementary schools in Quincy Point and West Quincy

At the April 9 regular meeting of the Quincy School Committee, multiple parents used the Open Forum to call for returning fifth grade to elementary schools in parts of the city that currently send fifth graders to middle schools.

“Fifth graders belong in elementary school. Let’s put them back,” parent Laura Moy told the committee, recounting her daughter’s difficult transition and a separate family’s experience in which a fifth grader said to have had access to vapes later attempted suicide. Moy said the move to middle school at fifth grade had harmed those children’s ability to transition and asked the district to restore elementary fifth grade in affected neighborhoods.

Alexis Veith, another parent, told the committee she had two children who attended fifth grade at Point Webster Middle School and said the mixed environment with older students exposed fifth graders to earlier social pressures. “These fifth graders are middle schoolers. They see themselves as middle schoolers,” Veith said, adding that fifth graders who attend middle school share bathrooms, yards and extracurriculars with older students.

Why it matters: parents said the current arrangement creates inequities across neighborhoods — in some elementary schools fifth grade remains in the elementary building while in Quincy Point and parts of West Quincy students move to middle school in fifth grade. Both speakers asked the committee to evaluate staffing, programming and upcoming building projects (including new school construction) for opportunities to restore K–5 or K–4 configurations that would keep fifth graders in elementary buildings.

What officials said: the committee did not take action during the meeting but heard the requests; multiple committee members acknowledged they had heard similar concerns from constituents and invited further discussion at future meetings.