By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — The Board of Education on Thursday got its first look at a timeline for anticipated elementary school redistricting, but new enrollment numbers have some members questioning the need.

“I just want to throw it out there that I have doubts about redistricting given some of these numbers,” said board member Jill Dillon, reacting to a preliminary report showing 73 fewer students enrolled in the town’s schools this fall than anticipated — 65 of them across the district’s five elementary schools.

Despite lower-than-expected enrollment, Supt. of School Thomas Scarice said officials must plan for a brand-new Long Lots building that will attract new families.

“There is no crisis,” Scarice told the board’s meeting at Staples High School. “However, there is a need to modestly rebalance our elementary schools due to an enrollment influx experienced after the pandemic [and] a need to mitigate the anticipated impact of an enrollment spike at Long Lots Elementary School following the new construction.”

Scarice said the district can’t build a school for 600 students, and then several years later seek to install modular classrooms to handle that higher enrollment.

Plans for a new Long Lots are underway. Ground is expected to be broken on the replacement school, with a projected $100 million price tag, later than originally planned this fall and instead sometime next year.

This fall, Long Lots has 585 students — 13 fewer than projected. Still, there are 29 class sections. While a final design for the new school is not complete, it is expected to have 30 classrooms, five per grade level, room for Stepping Stones Preschool and flex space for enrollment bubbles.

The school board began discussing the need to redistrict nearly two years ago, but a pandemic-fueled enrollment surge led to three years of enrollment growth districtwide. Two portable classrooms were added to Long Lots ease overcrowding.

Initial suggestions were that between 3 and 5 precent of the district’s 2,400 elementary school students might be affected by redistricting.

Scarice said in an interview before the start of school, Phase 1 of redistricting would perhaps affect only 50 to 80 students in the Long Lots, Saugatuck and Greens Farms elementary schools, which all feed their student bodies to Bedford Middle School.

Scarice said his intention is to put redistricting on every board agenda through November.

At its Sept. 19 meeting, Mike Zuba of MP Planning Group, the district’s demographer, will provide the board with two to four redistricting options to consider.

In October, there will be opportunities for public input and even a special board meeting devoted just to the topic.

The school board is to adopt the Phase 1 Redistricting Plan before the coming holiday season so the administration can spend the winter, spring and summer planning for the plan’s implementation at the start of the 2025-26 school year.

Beyond moving boundaries for school districts, there will be staffing, transportation and budget considerations.

Phase II, involving Kings Highway and Coleytown elementaries, would not take place until the new Long Lots opens — which now is not expected to be complete by the originally targeted date of September 2026.

Scarice said the goal is to balance the student population across the district and optimize space and resources. Some schools have dedicated spaces for music and world languages. Others don’t.

It is not anticipated that redistricting will save money, according to Scarice.

Dillon said rather than move students around to solve space equity issues, officials should focus on fixing all facilities.

What enrollment numbers say

This year’s initial head count in Westport’s public schools, to be updated by Oct. 1, is 5,210 students, not counting preschoolers or students placed out of district. The district’s projected enrollment — a building block for the 2024-25 year school budget — was 5,283.

School officials couldn’t fully explain the drop off, but suggest the state’s change in the starting age for kindergarten — students now have to be 5 years old by Sept. 1 — may have contributed to the lower figure.

Coleytown Elementary School has 37 fewer students from what was projected, including 13 fewer in kindergarten. Seventy-four kindergartners were expected, but the actual number is 61. Last year, Coleytown had the largest kindergarten enrollment in the district

Saugatuck was the only elementary school with total enrollment higher than projected — by one student. Greens Farms is down eight students from projections and, as a result, lost one of its first-grade sections. Kings Highway is also down eight students.

At the middle schools, there is an overall decrease of 16 students fewer than forecast. Coleytown Middle lost 20 students, Bedford gained four.

At Staples High School, enrollment is eight students higher than projected, standing at 1,645.

“Not radical changes from what we expected,” said Assistant Supt. John Bayers, who compiled the data.

Still, board Chair Lee Goldstein asked if the demographer’s projections were wrong or are more people sending their children to private schools.

Bayers said it’s easier to tell if students transfer to private schools once they are in the district, harder if they never enroll as kindergarteners.

Dillon said she would like to see details from exit forms, filled out by parents when students leave the district. Particularly at Coleytown Middle, where 20 fewer students is four percent of the school’s total 486 students, she noted.

Scarice said Westport compares favorably to peer districts when it comes to retaining students.

“We keep a good portion of our kids,” he said.

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.