Starting with this new school year, fewer students will be enrolled at Edmund J. O’Neal Middle School of Excellence.
All sixth grades will move to North Albany Middle School, and the school will serve grades 7-8 only. This will reduce overall enrollment to about 285 students for the 2020-21 school year. Assistant Principal April Stokes also is moving to North Albany for 2020-21.
The City School District of Albany is making this change as we transition to North Albany as the district’s third permanent middle school, which will take full effect in the 2023-24 school year. For the next three years, students moving to middle school from Arbor Hill Elementary School, Schuyler Achievement Academy and Sheridan Preparatory Academy will enroll at North Albany.
In addition to serving students in grades 7-8 in the upcoming school year, O’Neal will serve only students in grade 8 in the 2021-22 school year. At that time, the district also plans to relocate the Albany International Center program from North Albany to O’Neal. These changes are part of the district’s ongoing work to create a new 650-student middle school at North Albany, which will open in the fall of 2023 following a construction and renovation project that voters approved last year.
The district also will put a new enrollment plan in place at that time for North Albany, William S. Hackett and Stephen and Harriet Myers middle schools. The district will develop that new enrollment plan through an open and inclusive community process in the coming years.
Families will receive much more information about school schedules and other topics later this summer as we plan for the new year amid the continuing uncertainties of the COVID-19 crisis. For more information or if you have questions, call Principal David Bernsley at (518) 475-6600.
