By Jarret Liotta
Though the Board of Education (BOE) is still unsure on when and how it wants to make a redistricting decision, parents whose children could be affected are vying to delay it for the immediate future.
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Superintendent of Schools David Abbey addresses the meeting tonight. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Jarret Liotta for WestportNow.com
At tonight’s BOE meeting, Anthony Buono, assistant superintendent of schools for teaching and learning, gave the board a summary report on the recent history of its quest for enrollment rebalancing — one that was aimed more at interested parents than the BOE itself.
“I think it’s important for the community to understand what is driving the need,” said BOE member Elaine Whitney.
Last week a parent group calling itself Westport Residents for Educational Stability (WRES) sent a petition to the BOE stating that any official vote on a redistricting plan should be postponed at least until new BOE members are elected, until a permanent superintendent is found, and until Coleytown Middle School (CMS) reopens.
“There is no harm to children to delay the vote and allow more analysis,” said Jennifer Bagnato, one of the organizers, who was among a dozen parents that addressed the board Monday night to urge delay.
While school officials have said nothing has been decided upon, Buono reiterated that a plan called Scenario 8A, which involves the relocation of the Stepping Stones preschool, as well as “pocket redistricting,” is “currently being viewed as the launchpad for exploring other options.”
In a tentative timeline he presented at its Sept. 3 meeting, Buono proposed the BOE vote on the issue in December, keeping it as a standing agenda item up until that time.
Recapping some of the highlights of the past year, including multiple visits from the consultant Milone & MacBroom, which presented a variety of rebalancing scenarios, Buono said the goal of redistricting was to balance numbers in order to make two four-teacher teaching teams at Bedford Middle School (BMS) and CMS viable and practical.
He pointed out that, though there is no “explicit” policy referencing four-teacher teams, current BOE policy states that a middle school team should not have more than 110 students.
“The four-person team is the most common throughout the United States,” he said, with the four core areas — language arts, math, science and social studies — represented by individual teachers with expertise in that area.
He said research indicates it is an effective means of cultivating strong relationships between students and teachers, as well as students and the school itself during those formative middle school years.
But while he and Superintendent of Schools David Abbey stated the BOE has positioned this as its primary purpose for rebalancing, at least one member has consistently argued that other factors are not being given adequate attention by the consultant in drawing up scenarios for discussion.
“The emphasis seems to be on the teaming model as opposed to the educational quality,” said member Vik Muktavaram, who was on speakerphone for Monday’s meeting.
In the past Muktavaramt has called into question the assumption that the current team model should even be the primary purpose, with other issues such as cost, quality of life, transportation impacts and more needing to be weighed in relation.
“As a board we never prioritized the guiding criteria,” he said, asking again that the consultant present scenarios in a way that looks at the trade-offs of different options.
“I am not necessarily saying that all of them are equal, but we need to understand the trade-offs between them,” he said.
“I apologize for reemphasizing this so many times, (but) that’s the thing that is missing from this discussion,” he said.
“It’s got to happen at some point,” BOE member Neil Phillips said of redistricting, likening the back and forth on the topic to a yo-yo.
“In the fall we had a lot of consensus from the community and from the board … in terms of redistricting,” he said, noting he believed the problem of enrollment and potential issues of equity between the middle schools “was an issue years before.”
“The idea of redistricting is not foreign … to this board,” Phillips said.
“We’ve been talking about this as a board for a good five years as something we’re going to need to do,” Whitney said. “Now the question is how best to do it.”
As the consultant was unable to attend Monday night’s meeting, a special meeting has been scheduled for next Monday, Sept. 23, to talk more about the issue.
“We have to wait and see what happens next week, (but) I completely understand the anxiety and concern of people who may be in a redistricted zone,” said BOE member Candice Savin.
Several who has seen their streets identified in Scenario 8A as subject to redistricting expressed just that to BOE members.
“I struggle to see the logic of having students who are within walking distance of BMS get on a bus and attend another school,” said parent Chris Mashia, who said they bought their house 10 years ago with the idea that one day their children would be able to walk to BMS and Staples High School.
“The maps as drawn now are patently unreasonable,” Bagnato said, noting that more than 470 people in total had signed the WRES petition.
Jessica Bram, a Representative Town Meeting member from District 6, spoke on behalf of her constituents.
“Clearly you don’t have unanimous buy-in from the parents right now,” she said.
“The parents in this town have really gone through a trauma this year,” she said, citing the closing of CMS and residual fallout.
“I don’t see the reason for pushing this through,” she said.
