Multi-age classrooms in Scarborough’s three elementary schools will be eliminated next year, a victim of state and federal testing requirements and parental disinterest.

“Multi-age has existed in this town for 20 years and it’s been a widely successful program, but it’s no longer multi-age (classrooms),” said Sue Helms, Blue Point School principal.

Instead, she said, the different grades have to receive specialized instruction – even in a multi-age classroom – in order to meet state and federal standards.

In place of multi-age classrooms next year, Scarborough will offer what many educators say is becoming the new rage: looping, or keeping students with a teacher for more than one year.

The multi-age classroom movement swept the nation in the mid-1980s, and Scarborough and other area towns got right on board. Educational leaders found having children in two or three different grades in one classroom fostered a sense of community, mentoring, leadership among older students and social development in the younger ones.

The programs also allowed students to stay with a teacher for more than one year, giving teachers and students the ability to start up where they left off in the fall.

In Scarborough, Helms said, teachers even went to England to observe multi-age instruction there, and a dedicated core of teachers took on the task of instructing kindergarten, first grade and second grades together with enthusiasm. Although the grades have some separate instruction, school officials said, the whole classroom would take on year-long themed study projects, such as “ocean,” “forest,” or “field,” and older children learned in part by helping the younger ones learn.

“It was just a very cooperative and collaborative opportunity,” said Steve Bailey, South Portland’s assistant school superintendent. South Portland had multi-age classrooms from the early 1990s until three years ago, when they were eliminated for reasons similar to Scarborough’s.

These days, educators say, making sure students are “at grade level” has fractured multi-age classrooms and made them impractical. Because students have to meet certain standards in each grade – not at the end of two or three years – the different grades end up getting separate instruction even if they’re in multi-age classrooms.

“You end up having grade levels (within the classroom),” Doyle said. “That’s what the multi-age, multi-graded experience has evolved to.”

In addition, Scarborough officials say there’s been a drop-off in parent interest, particularly at the elementary level. In 2002, there were 305 students in multi-age classrooms in Scarborough’s three elementary schools, according to the school district; in 2007, there were only 113.

Scarborough parents can choose either graded or multi-age classrooms for students in Grades 1-8.

“There’s been a very sharp decrease in the number of parents requesting multi-age,” Helms said. “We had the original core of multi-age teachers who retired (and) I think without the original core of people, parents said, ‘Well, if we’re not going to have a really experienced multi-age teacher, we might as well go with graded.'”

But looping offers one of the multi-age classroom’s big advantages – keeping students with a teacher for more than one year.

“One of the big reasons parents request multi-age is because their child has the opportunity to develop a more long-lasting relationship with the teacher,” Helms said. “The biggest benefit (of multi-age) is the continuation of a teacher for more than one year.”

Board of Education member Chris Brownsey knows the benefits of looping – his son is in fourth grade at Wentworth Intermediate School, his second year with the same teacher.

“The benefit of looping, and multi-age, is really the second year,” Brownsey said. “They hit the ground running. (Teachers) know what the kids’ strengths are.”

Teachers who currently teach in looping classrooms “really like it and they’re really engaged,” he said.

Sandra Gorsuch Plummer, a former Eight Corners teacher, said looping into second grade with her former first-graders was “one of the most rewarding teaching experiences I’ve had.” Knowing the students, their families and their strengths and struggles “relieves a lot of jitters,” she said, and eliminated most beginning-of-the-year struggles.

“It’s a similar benefit to multi-age,” she said.

Gorsuch-Plummer and Helms said they’ve heard from some parents of first-graders in multi-age classrooms who are concerned about who their child’s teacher will be next year, but for the most part the elimination of the multi-age classrooms has been greeted quietly.

“What people do seem to be really enthused about, it’s the idea of looping,” Doyle said. “It does have some of the benefits of multi-age. The feedback and the research we’ve seen are very positive.”