We want to start to build community, Pollio said.
School board chairwoman Diane Porter, whose district includes the West End, said she supports the proposal. The goal is for them to develop friendships with each other, to be familiar with those teachers that will make the move into the new school, so that there is less anxiety, Porter said at a press conference Monday.
The Grace James Academy, the sister school of the W.E.B. DuBois Academy, would move into the Roosevelt-Perry building. The magnet school, which focuses on science and technology and uses an Afrocentric curriculum, is expected to have around 300 students across sixth and seventh grades this fall.