By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — Offered examples of how other school districts handled redistricting, Board of Education members this week stuck their toe in the water of a process aimed at improving enrollment balance at the town’s elementary and middle schools.

Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice is aiming for the change to occur in the fall of 2025.

Some board members are still pushing the idea of addressing existing imbalances a year sooner.

“I just think 30 months feels very slow,” said board member Robert Harrington.

Harrington said the process can be done carefully without waiting two and a half years before the first “shifting.”

Other board members say they could be sold on an earlier switch.

“I don’t have an opinion,” said board Chairwoman Lee Goldstein, adding nothing is off the table.

With all the other projects the school district is undertaking, however, Goldstein said her inclination is stick with the guidance outlined by the superintendent.

Scarice told the board he does not recommend a fall 2024 change.

Either way, the board began by talking about goals and steps that need to be taken to help guide the process.

It plans to continue the conversation on March 20 when a capacity study of the district is ready.

The board seeks to address overcrowding at Long Lots and Coleytown elementary schools, a perceived underutilization of Saugatuck Elementary School and a growing gap between the size of the town’s two middle schools.

 The district’s last attempt at redistricting in 2018, which resulted in more than a dozen possible options, did not go well and was abandoned. It has been 25 years since school district lines have changed.

Moving forward, Scarice said the school board should create a policy to look at the issue every eight years.

This time, he recommended a three-phase process:

• Establish goals, or what the district hopes to accomplish.
• Develop a plan that includes community input.
• Execute the chosen plan, something Scarice said would take up to 10 months and involve organizing student and staff reassignments, budget development, transportation changes, and notice to families.

 As such, if a fall 2025 redistricting is decided upon, the board would have to approve the chosen plan by November 2024, Scarice said.

Board Secretary Neil Phillips wondered if time could be saved by seeking community input as the plan is developed.

 “We can do it the way that is best for us,” Scarice said.

Why redistricting was a no-go last time

Board members who remember the last redistricting attempt, said the community should be presented with one or two well-thought-out scenarios tops.

“I am not joking when I say there were 18 scenarios [last time],” said Goldstein.

Scarice agreed.

“I don’t think it serves the community well to go off into too many different directions,” he said.

“That can be a guiding guardrail,” said board member Dorie Hordon.

Harrington said besides too many options, last time the board was not clear about what it was trying to get done.

“I don’t think we are going to get a lot of excitement and support for redistricting, so at some point administration and board are going to have to lead,” Harrington said.

“Not glued to anything” about redistricting

Board members seemed  in agreement over purpose.

“The goal is pretty clear: right sizing schools, prevent overcrowding, make it sustainable,” said Goldstein. Also, maintaining equity in programming between schools, she added.

As for setting guardrails, the board did not seem set on specifics, including the execution date.

Although key information remains missing, Hordon said she remains open to redistricting by the fall of 2024 because of the overcrowding at some schools.

“I’m not glued to anything,” Hordon said.

 Scarice said the board must decide if it wants to keep the district’s current K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 grade configurations.

 Most say yes, but board member Christina Torres said she can see the value in a school that houses all sixth graders in town and didn’t want to close that option.

“This is a puzzle,” Torres said. “You are going to come up with many different variations of options. I hate to shut one down before we explore and investigate further.”

 Some board members seemed open to the possibility that at least one elementary school could become a split feeder school, meaning that after fifth grade, half of the students would go to one middle school and half to the other. The aim would be to better balance the middle schools.

“If we keep K-5, 6-8, then we have a mathematical problem in front of us,” Goldstein said. “We either need to split an elementary or send the two largest to [the same] middle school to keep a 60/40 split.”

Another decision to be made is whether to make changes all at once or in phases. Scarice said he has never done a phased-in redistricting before.

“It’s unchartered waters for me,” he said.

Enrollment, class-size numbers are critical

Informing the decisions will be a study underway to see if the district should change its existing policies that cap class sizes, as well as a district capacity study due later this month.

Board member Kevin Christie said he would like some level of confidence in the enrollment projections the district receives.

Recent unexpected increases in enrollment have been blamed on the pandemic, which may or may not be sustained over time, Scarice said.

Redistricting’s impact on the budget is another consideration, Christie said.

Goldstein and other board members said they want to see schools at a size that maximizes the use of resources and staff in an efficient way.

Efficiency is achieved when the staff does not have to be shared between buildings, said Assistant Supt. John Bayers.

Harrington said he wants a plan that will prevent school overcrowding.

One elementary school has portable classrooms, and another is set to get them this summer — in both cases, because of overcrowding. One middle school is approaching 1,000 students.

Harrington called that worrisome.

Goldstein said Bedford Middle, which has 778 students this year, is big but not overcrowded.

Goldstein wondered about ideal elementary school sizes.

Is 600 students — the current enrollment at Long Lots — too big, she asked.

Scarice said an elementary school with 600 students is big, but can be done well. It depends on the building. The town now is deciding whether to replace or rebuild Long Lots.

The capacity study will tell how many students can comfortably be accommodated in the district’s square footage.

Schools also need swing and flex space for unexpected enrollment increases, Scarice said.

“There will be bubbles that come through no matter what we do,” 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.