By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — Work will begin this fall on a redistricting plan for the town’s schools, but the superintendent remains adamant that changes won’t occur until the fall of 2025.

Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice laid out the timeline for the board during a special meeting Monday. “This is a very thoughtful approach to do this once and do this right,” he said.

Despite a continued push from the board’s three Republican members to adopt new school boundaries sooner, Scarice warned moving faster could prove to be chaotic.

“I think any time you compress time that is unnecessary I think it’s a problem,” the superintendent said.

Scarice favors two-year planning process

With several members of the Representative Town Meeting watching from the audience, Scarice said the school board should spend the fall determining what it wants redistricting to accomplish — presumably to achieve a more appropriate balance among students attending the elementary and middle schools — and any guiding criteria.

As an example, Scarice said the board will have to determine if it wants keep its current K-5, 6-8, 9-12 grade structure.

Once the board sets ground rules, an internal working group would then be formed to develop various scenarios, taking into account staffing, programming, policies, transportation and logistics.

The group would also look at refreshed enrollment projections.

Over the past three years, 262 unexpected K-5 students have enrolled in town schools.

Scarice said it appears the pandemic-fueled enrollment surge is leveling off.

At the moment, the district is projected to be four sections below the 123 classes anticipated across all five elementary schools for the fall. Several schools are only a few students shy of requiring more sections based on board policy, it was noted.

Even so, Long Lots Elementary School is described as overcrowded and two portable classrooms are being installed this summer to tide things over.

Developing a redistricting plan is expected to take up to eight months and would include community input and feedback.

Sometime before the start of the 2025-26 budget season in November 2024, the board would commit to a plan. That will allow 10 months for fiscal elements of the plan to be addressed and provide sufficient lead time for execution, Scarice said.

Beyond letting people know about the redistricting plan, the work will include making student assignments, re-assigning staff, re-routing buses, moving furniture and executing transition programs.

“I would like to emphasize that the district has successfully taken a measured approach to consequential projects and tasks during my tenure, such as capital improvement planning, academic program evaluation, the annual operating budget,” Scarice said in justifying the two-year timeframe.

He offered the school board a chart to visually illustrate how compressed some of the process would be if it were done in a single year.

What’s the downside of moving ahead sooner?

“What would be compromised with a shorter implementation period?” asked an unconvinced board Vice Chairwoman Liz Heyer.

Scarice pointed out that staffers doing the work already have day jobs administering the district.

He said his recommended timeline would move the  process forward at a good clip. “I don’t want to feel chaotic,” Scarice said.

“I don’t think trying to push and ask questions about or relieve pressure in one part of the school district is necessarily chaotic or rushed view,” responded board member Robert Harrington when it was his turn to speak.

Harrington suggested that waiting a year between making a decision and implementation would be overkill, and that the process was being made more difficult and complicated than necessary.

“At the end of the day, I’d like to see us push harder to get to a better situation in a more timely way,” Harrington said.

Superintendent has been through it before

Board Chairwoman Lee Goldstein pointed out that, unlike most of the board members, Scarice has been through a redistricting process before, when he was schools superintendent in Madison. That experience factored into him getting the job, she said.

“I appreciate this approach,” she added. Scarice’s “opinion about the timeline I trust.”

Fellow Democratic board members Neil Philips, Christina Torres and Kevin Christie all agreed.

“We all want it to be done sooner,” said Philips, the board’s secretary. “[But] we want it to be done right. There is import to what the administration is telling us.”

Heyer said she wondered if district officials think that delaying redistricting would keep students from having to move twice during the process, since a new or rebuilt Long Lots is being planned.

“I think we have to consider the potential kids would move twice,” Heyer said.

Scarice said he does not envision a multi-phase redistricting plan regardless of when it occurs.

“I don’t see targeting the same neighborhood twice,” he said of potential boundary shifts.

Board member Dorie Hordon said a phased-in redistricting plan might be warranted if overcrowding at Long Lots means students there are not getting the same experience as elsewhere in the district.

“If there is space at other schools that can accommodate them it would be foolish not to use it,” Hordon said.

The classroom experience at Long Lots is the same as at other schools, the board was told.

“Then if it’s hunky-dory, why redistrict at all?” Hordon responded.

Scarice said that 300 parents at Long Lots signed a petition asking for modular classrooms and others at a PTA meeting urged the board not to rush into redistricting without a thoughtful plan.

“Not one said redistrict sooner rather than later,” Scarice said.

Later, Hordon said she felt confident that all schools in town are fabulous and that redistricting, while scary, won’t change that. “It will all turn out OK,” she said.

Hold firm, but expect bumps along the way

Speakers from the audience, many from RTM District 7, where Long Lots is located, told the school board a measured approach is the way to go.

“Stay strong,” said Lee Shufro, who lives on Old Road. “Judging by the dialogue, this board is not ready to redistrict by 2024.”

Jack Klinge, a District 7 RTM member, urged the board not to use redistricting to try to make every school in town exactly the same.

“This is redistricting of people not equipment,” Klinge said. “It’s about balancing school population to match the school size and capability of teaching that population.”

Klinge urged the board to be flexible. He said redistricting was done right in town about 20 years ago and can be done right again.

“We have to get it right,” he said.

Jimmy Izzo, a District 3 RTM member, said he liked the push on both sides. He urged the board to put a fork in the ground, then keep the public up to speed on what is going on in the process.

“You are going to have a lot of push back from parents,” Izzo said. “It’s not that bad on kids.”

Elaine Whitney, a former school board member, called it a complex and important project that needs to be done right.

She, too, urged the board to be flexible and clear.

“Even if you are looking to the 2025 date, starting this coming fall, at least beginning some of those conversations will be helpful because there are going to be challenges, bumps … along the way,” Whitney 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.