A Look at Greenwich's Redistricting Options

Short of the Greenwich Board of Education deciding not to do anything to resolve racial imbalance and facilities use issues in Greenwich—something that’s not really an option—some elementary students can expect to attend a new school in 2014.

The number of students who would attend a new school depends upon the plan approved by the board, which has set a “target” of October to make a decision.  In a press briefing before the June 6 public hearing on the options, Schools Superintendent William McKersie said the town’s budget process is dictating the timing of the decision.

The district must present its proposed 2014-15 budget to the town in November.

About 40 minutes before about 800 parents, teachers, local and state leaders heard the first public detailed analysis of how the four options presented to the Board of Education June 6, Schools Superintendent William McKersie said, “The decision will be made when we have the right options.”   

Here is a look at the options (the full presentation can be downloaded with the PDF below) as presented by consultants Milone & MacBroom, the Cheshire-based firm that won the district's request for proposals on redistricting earlier this year that is being paid $55,000 for its work:

FULL REDISTRICTING

There are two options presented within the full redistricting scenario, both of which would affect about 21 percent of the elementary school population.

The first involves relocating about 850 students for better overall enrollment balancing. Hamilton Avenue School will no longer be imbalanced, however, New Lebanon would.

To have New Lebanon within 1.8 percent of the balance threshold, and Hamilton Avenue no longer imbalanced, the second redistricting scenario would relocate about 900 elementary students.

DISTRICT-WIDE CHOICE:

Parents would be able to elect 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices for schools. The school district administration would assign students to schools or students could win a seat to a chosen school through a lottery. Students not place in the selected school, would be randomly assigned based upon space availability.

This option generated much discussion among board members. Republican Steve Anderson said magnet school themes would have to be strengthened in order to generate parental interest in sending their students out of their home district. Another impact with offering magnet school choice, is that the district would have to bus students. Current district policy does not mandate bus transportation for out-of-district magnet school students.

“Rarely do you find an effective magnet program if you do not provide transportation,” McKersie said. “This would be a substantial impact.” Transportation costs associated with this option have not been calculated.

PARTIAL MAGNET SCHOOLS:

The option to create partial magnet schools involves several different scenarios .

One option involves evaluating the effectiveness of the current magnet school structure and revising it. It also would involve student placement via parent selection, a lottery and placement by school administrators, based upon space considerations.

There would be three partial magnet schools: New Lebanon, North Street and International School at Dundee (ISD). The three magnet school zones would be based upon enrollment patterns, capacity and geography and assumes that a pre-kindergarten program would be established at one school per zone.

The three potential magnet zones are:

• Zone 1: New Lebanon, Glenville, western part of Parkway School that would follow the middle school zone split. (There would be a total of 855 students, 330 of whom would be minority for a minority percentage of 38.6 percent.)
• Zone 2: Hamilton Avenue, North Street, Cos Cob, the eastern part of Parkway School that would follow the middle school zone split. (There would be a total of 1,259 student, 480 of whom would be minority for a minority percentage of 38.13 percent.)
• Zone 3: Julian Curtiss, Riverside, Old Greenwich, ISD and North Mianus. (There would be a total of 1,948 students in this zone, 587 of whom would be minorities or 30.13 percent.) 

RECONFIGURATION:

Milone & MacBroom also recommended an option to create three K through 5 intradistrict magnet schools. The remaining schools would be reconfigured as pre-K through 2nd and 3rd through 5th grade schools.

The three recommended K through 5 full magnet schools would be Glenville, ISD and North Street. Then the sister school pairings to balance enrollments would be:

• Cos Cob and Riverside;
• Hamilton Avenue and Julian Curtiss
• New Lebanon and Parkway
• North Mianus and Old Greenwich.

The next discussion of these options is scheduled for Tuesday, June 11. A public forum for schools cited as racially imbalanced—Hamilton Avenue and New Lebanon—will be held at 6:30 p.m. with Spanish translation and childcare available. That hearing will be followed by a public hearing at 7:30 p.m. Both will be held at Western Middle School, 1 Western Junior Highway.

Other public hearings are scheduled for:

• June 14: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Town Hall Meeting Room, 101 Field Point Rd.
• June 19: 7 p.m. at Eastern Middle School, 9 Indian Rock Ln.
• June 20: at the Board of Education meeting at 7 p.m., Greenwich High School, 10 Hillside Rd.

For more information:

Here are links from the Greenwich Board of Education website on the facility utilization and racial imbalance.

To view a Vimeo broadcast of previous meetings on the issue,click here.

For the district’s online public comment process, click here. 

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