Major Changes Possible for Seekonk Schools

The composition of Seekonk Public Schools may look very different when the 2025-2026 school year begins. Faced with increasing enrollment, aging buildings, and a lack of classroom space, the School Department is exploring moving grades in an effort to provide the best educational experience for students.

The Seekonk Public Schools Building & Infrastructure Community Meeting will be held on August 14th in the Seekonk High School Library at 6 pm.  The public is invited, and an agenda will be posted.

“In order to prepare well for any changes to school configurations for Fall 2025, we want to start now: families and students need time to prepare if there are going to be new transition points,” said School Superintendent Rebecca Kidwell. “We are excited to work together with the community to develop a plan that best serves students' needs.”

One proposed option would be to move the eighth grade from Hurley Middle School to Seekonk High School.

In 2021, the 10 classroom addition to Aitken Elementary School was completed at a cost of $11 million. Former School Superintendent Rich Drolet said the project was needed to reduce class sizes.

In the last few years, Seekonk has been experiencing a rapid population growth.

According to enrollment numbers provided to the Reporter by Kidwell, there were a total of 891 students at Aitken and Martin Elementary schools in the 2013-2014 school year. There were 1,151 students at Hurley and the high school.

For the 2023-2024 school year, there were a total of 2,061 students with 1,021 students at Aitken/Martin and 1,034 students at Hurley and the high school.

“Although the Aitken addition provided ten more learning spaces in recent years, growth in specialized student needs and the elementary population (as shown in the figures above) has exceeded that rate,” Kidwell noted.

Kidwell said Seekonk has continued to add growth in housing and is attractive to young families.

However, the high school continues to lose students to other districts.

Kidwell explained that 41 members of the 2023-24 eighth grade class will be going out of district this fall. 25 of those will be attending Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical and four will be attending Bristol County Agricultural.