"The faculty is walking around like the air is poisonous," she says. "Everybody's anxieties are coming out because there's so much uncertainty."

In the house system, Lipkin says, she works with people who share her educational philosophy. The new arrangement lacks this bond among teachers, she says.

But she says change is needed and even agrees with some specific elements of Evans' reform--like the plan to organize each school around a common space where students and teachers can interact.

Merging at the Maynard

Even more controversial than CRLS has been the Fletcher-Maynard elementary school merger, which committee members approved unanimously March 21.

The merger will effectively close Fletcher and Maynard and open a new school in the existing Maynard building, with a new principal, a different curriculum and a new name, which has not yet been decided.

The merged school will use a standardized curriculum called Core Knowledge, produced by a national firm and tailored to specific MCAS standards, as well as the Literacy Collaborative and a technology initiative called NetSchools.

The school will also cap class sizes at 17 students and be exempted from the district's racial quotas.

But this special status has some community members alarmed.

School committee member E. Denise Simmons lives in Area Four, the Cambridge neighborhood with the highest proportion of black and Latino residents, and where Fletcher and Maynard are located.

She says she has "grave concerns" about the merger.

"We continue to repeat history in a particular community for a particular group of people," she says.

Simmons says schools in Area Four have long been promised more and better resources but have been given less than their fair share of school district money.

Fletcher and Maynard parents are upset that the city will not pay for a new building or extensive renovations to Maynard. Both options could cost as much as $12 million.

But after City Manager Robert W. Healy originally budgeted $276,000 for repairs, Mayor Anthony D. Galluccio and Superintendent of Schools Bobbye J. D'Allessandro successfully lobbied Healy for extra money to ready the school for its ambitious new curriculum.

D'Alessandro announced last month that the building will undergo a modest $1.1 million fix-up over the next two years, including a paint job and replacement of windows that do not open.