Task Force Presents Seven Redistricting Options

The Redistricting Task Force made its presentation to the board of education Tuesday with one main message to the board—Adamsville Primary School's enrollment exceeds the capacity of the building.

The task force, which was created in October, was charged with evaluating actions to be taken to allocate the district's kindergarten through sixth grade population among its existing facilities, with focuses on program impacts, cost-effectiveness, equity, disruptions and long term populations.

In studying the school district, the task force found that Adamsville currently has 35 sections of students with more than 110 staff members, 21 buses to transport the children and four lunch periods. All of this, task force members said, create a significant strain on the facility and other services.

Also at Adamsville is the preschool disabled program, the AI program and a portion of the ESL program. But at the school, phys ed classes and speech programs are being taught in the hallways, and there are no spare classrooms for other sections.

Across the district, other schools are seeing declining enrollment.

For the task force, the one factor that struck them was that Adamsville goes against trends, by continuing to grow while the other schools have declining enrollment.

"What was most important was to come up with a structure approach to fix this, said task force facilitator Cynthia Truska.

Initially, Truska said, the task force took a look at the previous board of education proposals, and worked to both expand and alter them to fit what they saw as the needs of the district.

Those proposals had included moving the AI program from Adamsville, shifting enrollment to other schools and closing the Wade Administration building. The last option, Truska said, was eliminated and others were altered.

"We began with these and worked through a process," she said. "Other permutations came to life, and we brought together all viable options."

Task force member Jill Thomas said it is important to remember that Adamsville has three distinct populations. The first, general education she said, grows by about 3 percent every year.

"The AI group and student population is static throughout the year, but it can vary year to year," she said. "The preschool disabled group grows throughout the year, although it is fairly consistent year to year. It grows in the middle."

In investigating, Thomas said, the task force determined that several options could be eliminated, including a full kindergarten through fourth grade redistricting.

"It was deemed unnecessary," she said. "The current allocation is based on neighborhoods, and there is no better way to do that. We are trying to decrease disruptions, so it is not really necessary to do that."

"And reallocating the intermediate school populations was deemed unnecessary based on projections for the fall," she added. "It didn't seem necessary to redistrict Hillside and Eisenhower."

Finally, Thomas said, they determined that closing an elementary school was not feasible based on current enrollments.

"We can't fit everyone in fewer schools," she said.

From there, Thomas said, the task force came up with seven recommendations to ease the burden at Adamsville, and ranked them in order from best to worst.

Those options, in order from perceived best to worst, are:

• Move two bus routes from south of Main Street, and reroute them to Crim Primary. Then, move 50 to 75 general education students from Crim to Hamilton Primary or move two primary autism classes from Crim to Hamilton.
• Move three bus routes from Adamsville by taking 45 students from the Foothill route to Hamilton and 60 students from Bound Brook routes one and two to Crim.
• Move the Academically Independent [AI] program from Adamsville to  Hamilton and move three primary autism classes from Hamilton to Crim.
• Move the AI program from Adamsville to Milltown Primary move 68 students from Milltown to Bradley Gardens Primary, 27 language and learning disabled students from Milltown to Van Holten Primary and 49 students from Van Holten to Hamilton.
• Move the AI program from Adamsville to Hamilton.
• Redistrict 75 students from Crim to Hamilton, and take the three Adamsville bus routes outlined in the previous option and reroute them to Hamilton.
• Split the AI program across two schools, with grades two, three and four in Bradley Gardens, and grades three and four in Hamilton.

"These were the seven options felt to be viable and meeting the needs of the task force," Thomas said.

From there, Thomas said, the task force came up with several floater options to be implemented if they are needed. The involve reallocating a minimum of three preschool disabled classes from Adamsville to another school, moving a Foothill bus route of 45 students and moving two Bound Brook bus routes of about 70 students.

"These are pieces that could be implemented immediately or over time as enrollment counts change if we want to phase them in," she said.

And as for the full options, Thomas said, only three could raise costs.

But as for a timeline of implementation, Thomas said, all recommendations could be put into place for Fall 2012.

"There's not just one right answer, this was a complex issue that was presented to us," she said. "There were many issues associated with this, and we spent a lot of time discussing it."

Thomas said there are three key ideas that the task force did not have time to implement, but that it recommends the board look into, namely taking a closer look at the preschool disabled program, re-examining future enrollment projections before making a final decision and looking into impacts on facilities before moving students.

For the members of the board of education, they appreciated the work of the task force, and said they wanted time to really examine the options before making comments.

"Something I am glad to find is that one of the things we feared was that when we added up the capacities, one conclusion would be to close a school," said board member Jeffrey Brookner. "I'm glad to see that's not something that would make sense to do."

Truska said it would not be feasible to close a school.

"If a school is built to work at 100 percent, is it any more or less efficient at 90 percent?" she asked. "Closing a school is not really within our charter, and it is not viable at this time."

Superintendent of Schools Michael Schilder said the board really should have a decision by the end of March or beginning of April to ensure that a plan can be implemented for the fall.

"That way we can notify parents of any changes in transportation," he said.

For more information about the redistricting task force, and a breakdown of each of the options, visit the district's website.