Why Redistrict Greenwich School District When You Can Subdivide It?

A growing consensus is questioning if there is a way to avoid the unpopular proposed school redistricting plan and also put an end to racial imbalance and uneven academic achievement in the Greenwich school system once and for all?  Many may be surprised that the answer is yes.

Greenwich educators need not reinvent the wheel but simply follow in the proven footsteps of where others have gone before and subdivide the enormous Greenwich school district.  It is not difficult to argue that the size and demographic diversity of Greenwich’s 67.2 square miles is too much to properly manage under one school district. How else can you explain elementary school rankings that span from 295th to 19th? 

For those that have read the state regulation regarding racial imbalance it clearly pertains to each “school district” not “town”. By providing Western Greenwich with their own school district the problem of racial imbalance would be solved instantaneously. Property values would increase and the road would be paved to boost academic achievement, for all students. So is it really so far fetched for a town twice the size of Manhattan with 11 elementary schools, 3 middle schools and 1 High School of 2,700 to subdivide it’s school district to better serve it’s students?

The educators in the West Bend School District in Wisconsin didn’t seem to think so.  They managed to subdivide their school district and share a common high school, a plan Greenwich could follow to avoid the need for new facilities.  Each district’s high school class has their own students, teachers, principals and sports teams but share an auditorium, music department and gymnasium.  Each school has approximately 1200 students, a student body almost identical to Greenwich.

Who stands to gain from this? Arguably everybody. For Eastern Greenwich it would mean a return to the status quo and more. For Western Greenwich it would mean a revitalization of a failing school system. It’s no secret that Western Greenwich students trail their Eastern Greenwich neighbors academically, however the problem may be worse than we think. 

Western Middle School for example is ranked 131 out of 266 middle schools in the state, testing lower than schools in Norwalk, Stamford and at least one in Bridgeport. High Horizons School in Bridgeport is one of the poorest middle schools in Connecticut, with 88 percent of its students qualified for free or discounted lunches. And yet it was able to out perform Western Middle School in both math and reading.

There is absolutely no defense for this. Consider the following: 

·  Western has only 30 percent of its students on a free or discounted lunch program.

·  Western has a Hispanic student population of 29 percent, but the Bridgeport school has 38 percent Hispanics.

·  Western has an African American population of 5.9 percent while High Horizons has 44 percent African Americans.

·  Western has a teacher-student ratio of 12-1; Bridgeport is 18-1.

·  Both schools are about same size: Western 490, and High Horizons 432.

These trends continue at elementary schools like New Lebanon and Hamilton Avenue. The excuse that their poor performance is a direct result of a high minority population holds no merit when you consider schools with far worse conditions manage to outperform them. 

It seems the problem lies in the lack of ground floor leadership and oversight.  With the creation of a Western Greenwich school district and Board of Education these schools can now receive the focused attention they need and deserve to turn things around. 

Consider Texas Superintendent Bob Moore who has executed this exact strategy three times before in Grand Junction Colorado, Amarillo Texas and Oklahoma City. Moore states, “In every way, we want to operate as smaller districts…To really form a team that looks at a smaller number of schools as opposed to the way we’ve had. Research is pretty clear small schools are getting better results”.  Turns out he’s right, student performance went up in all his districts and without hiring any additional staff.

The choices are clear.  We can travel down a proven path and achieve results that will:

· Permanently solve racial imbalance

· Preserve “neighborhood” schools

· No redistricting

· No students torn from their existing schools

· Increase property values

· Increase in opportunity for Western Greenwich students to improve academic performance and enroll in ALP classes

· Increase in opportunity for all students to participate in after school sports

Or we can choose any one of the four options currently presented by Consultants Milone and MacBroom and face the consequences:

· Racial imbalance would still remain an issue even with a complete redistricting

· Destroy “neighborhood” schools

· Displace over 800 students

· Costly transportation increases

· Severe decrease in property values

· No evidence of an increase to academic achievement

Our time as parents and educators is upon us to make the tough decisions that will pave the way for the future of our children. A subdivision of the Greenwich school system may turn out not to be the right answer. However what we must take away from this is that alternative possibilities do exist and it is our responsibility to explore each and every one of them before setting down a path we cannot turn back from.