Board of Ed Approves New Middle School Feeder Plan on 5-4 Vote

The Board of Education late Tuesday approved "Option E" as the new middle school feeder plan on a 5-4 vote.

Beginning next September, students in McKinley, Burr Elementary and Stratfield elementary schools will attend Tomlinson Middle School; students in Riverfield, Sherman, Mill Hill and Dwight elementary schools will attend Roger Ludlowe Middle School; and students in Jennings, Holland Hill, Osborn Hill and North Stratfield schools will attend Fairfield Woods Middle School. The school board did not vote on "grandfathering," which would enable students already in sixth- and seventh-grades to attend the same middle school next September.

Board members Pam Iacono, Stacey Zahn, John Mitola, Tim Kery and Catherine Albin voted in favor of Option E. Board Chairman Sue Brand and board members Perry Liu, Sue Dow and Paul Fattibene voted against.

The board's controversial vote - greeted with cat calls by several parents as they left the auditorium in Roger Ludlowe Middle School - followed review of an 11th-hour plan put forward by Brand that called for students in McKinley, Jennings, Stratfield and North Stratfield schools to go to Fairfield Woods Middle School; students in Burr Elementary, Holland Hill, Osborn Hill and Riverfield schools to go to Roger Ludlowe Middle School; and students in Sherman, Mill Hill and Dwight schools to go to Tomlinson Middle School.

Brand said her plan, labeled 9.9.10, would have allowed more students in McKinley and Stratfield schools to walk to middle school, since they would go to Fairfield Woods instead of Tomlinson, and was less disruptive since four of 11 elementary schools would go to a different middle school, rather than the eight elementary schools in Option E.

But Brand's feeder plan was not without flaws, as proponents of Option E pointed out.

Brand's plan would have made Burr Elementary a "singleton" - an elementary school that winds up at a different high school than other elementary schools in its cluster that goes to middle school - and it would have created significant overcrowding at Roger Ludlowe and Fairfield Woods middle schools, leaving Tomlinson Middle School below 98 percent capacity in each of the next four years, with Fairfield Woods at a peak capacity of 115 percent and Ludlowe at a peak capacity of 108 percent.

The Board of Education is changing its middle school feeder plan to fill Fairfield Woods Middle School, which is scheduled to undergo a $24.2 million renovation and expansion that will increase its capacity from 650 to 840 students for the 2011-12 school year.

About 200 parents attended Tuesday night's school board meeting, and, of those who spoke, a slim majority favored the board delaying its vote on a new middle school feeder plan. A slim majority also didn't seem to favor Option E, based on students who wouldn't be able to go to a nearby middle school and its failure to address overcrowding at Fairfield Ludlowe High School. Ludlowe High is projected to have about 400 more students than Fairfield Warde High School when the enrollment bubble of students now entering middle school hits the high schools.

"We are going to do this for 200 seats with no long-range planning once again, and you're going to do this in two meetings," said Ginger Thompson of Elm Street. "You're going to take kids from a walking district, and you're going to tell me you're not going to do this again in two years for high school? You're still not looking at a long-term plan."

Seth Block of Shrub Oak Lane said, "Clearly there's concern. Clearly this is ill conceived. Clearly, this is a rushed judgment."

"You guys have to go back and address the entire town. If you don't do that, you're doing the entire town a disservice," Block said.

Block's concern echoed previous comments by Liu, who didn't think the board should vote on a new middle school feeder plan until it had revised enrollment projections for elementary schools and a possible redrawing of elementary school attendance zones.

Other parents, though, wanted the board to put to bed an issue that was dividing the town and enable parents of elementary school students to know where their children will go to middle school.

The board delved, briefly, into what criteria was most important in a new middle school feeder plan - avoiding singletons and changes to the high school feeder plan, which were satisfied by Option E, or allowing elementary school students to go to a middle school closer to their home and sending fewer elementary school students to a different middle school, which was satisfield by Brand's plan. Brand said her plan also addressed the disparity in enrollment between the two high schools.

Pete Donohue of Elm Street said Brand's plan "handles the hour Dwight will be on a bus and the hour Stratfield will be on a bus."

"Why are we busing kids across town?" Donohue said.

But Dwight and Stratfield children already are bused across town. The current middle school feeder plan sends Dwight children to Tomlinson Middle School and Stratfield children to Roger Ludlowe Middle School.

Kery, chairman of the subcommittee that recommended Option E, didn't like the process by which Brand put forward a new middle school feeder plan, saying it was made available to the public only five days ago and gave "rumors and conspiracy theories" new life.

"I just think the better way to address this was at the criteria level," Kery said. "If this board wants to make geography and walkers the number one priority of this redistricting, the subcommittee can go back and make geography and walkers the number one priority."

Kery's subcommittee had nine criteria in selecting a new middle school feeder plan, but Liu said Option E didn't meet the criteria of avoiding disruption to elementary schools, and Liu said it also didn't make sense geographically, since McKinley and Stratfield students, instead of going to Fairfield Woods Middle School under Brand's plan, would be bused across town to Tomlinson Middle School.

Kery pointed out that Brand's plan made Burr Elementary a singleton, though Brand said that could be addressed by changing the high school feeder plan in a few years. Iacono, the school board's vice chairman, doubted that would happen, given the board's history in long debates over redistricting. "Burr, you will be a singleton. I guarantee it," Iacono said.

Mitola, a member of Kery's subcommittee, said Brand's plan also didn't spread overcrowding across the three middle schools. "This is a great plan for Tomlinson. They're around 94 percent, 97 percent" of capacity, he said. "The intent of the subcommittee was to share the middle school pain across the board. This plan doesn't do it. It overpopulates two middle schools. It makes Burr a singleton, which is a significant problem in my opinion...Don't you think we would have loved to put McKinley and Stratfield at Fairfield Woods?"

"We have two middle schools within a half-mile of each other," Mitola said, referring to Tomlinson and Roger Ludlowe. "That's the reality, and we're going to have to deal with it."

Supt. of Schools David Title weighed in on the criteria, saying it obviously was better to disrupt fewer elementary schools, but he said plans that did that required a singleton school or change to the high school feeder pattern, which he said he did not favor.

Title wanted the board to reach a decision by the end of the month, which seemed to stymie Liu's and some parents' desire that the board delay voting on a new middle school feeder plan until it had revised enrollment projections for elementary schools and a possible redrawing of elementary school attendance zones.

"We really need an answer by the 30th so we can get going with our planning," Title said.

Brand, though, said Tuesday night was only the second board meeting on a new middle school feeder plan and she was concerned the board hadn't reviewed or weighed the criteria used by Kery's subcommittee. She also was concerned that Option E sent eight elementary schools to a different middle school and didn't address the disparity in enrollment at the high schools, a point made by Betty Ann O'Shaughnessy, a Ludlowe High PTA member.

The Board of Education tried to postpone its vote on a new middle school feeder plan, but the vote failed.

"What's the point of postponing?" Mitola asked. "So we can send it back to subcommittee again and we can all look at each other again?...No matter what you do, there's going to be a problem. Someone's not going to like it."

Kery said, "Based on the same criteria, we're going to come to the same conclusion."

Choosing a new middle school feeder plan almost landed in Title's lap.

Zahn, the school board's secretary, said, "What it comes down to is this board can't make a decision."

After dozens of parents laughed in the audience, Zahn said, "It's not funny, truthfully."

"I'm not looking to discuss it or vote on it. I move to have Central Office take this in their hands and make the decision themselves."

But Zahn's motion failed to gain a second, so the debate raged on.