Middle School 'Feeder Pattern' Gives School Officials Food for Thought

Board of Education members are scheduled Monday to discuss changing the middle school "feeder pattern" again, and only one of the five options under review avoids "singletons" and changing the high school feeder pattern.

The school board needs to change the middle school feeder pattern, which determines where elementary school students attend middle school, because Fairfield Woods Middle School's capacity is scheduled to increase from 650 students to 840 students before the 2011-12 school year. The new feeder pattern would take effect in that school year.

John Mitola, a member of the board's Facilities, Technology and Long-Term Planning Committee, said Tuesday that only one of the proposed feeder patterns avoids singletons, where students in one elementary school would go from middle school to a different high school than other elementary school students who attend that middle school, and changes to the high school feeder pattern, which determines where middle school students go to high school.

That middle school feeder pattern, known as Option E, calls for students in Jennings, Holland Hill, Osborn Hill and North Stratfield elementary schools to attend Fairfield Woods Middle School; students in Riverfield, Roger Sherman, Mill Hill and Dwight elementary schools to attend Roger Ludlowe Middle School; and students in McKinley, Burr and Stratfield elementary schools to attend Tomlinson Middle School.

The drawback to Option E is that the current middle school feeder pattern would change dramatically.

The current middle school feeder pattern calls for students in Burr, Jennings and North Stratfield schools to attend Fairfield Woods Middle School; students in Dwight, Holland Hill, Mill Hill and Roger Sherman schools to attend Tomlinson Middle School; and students in McKinley, Osborn Hill, Riverfield and Stratfield schools to attend Roger Ludlowe Middle School.

If Option E were adopted by the Board of Education, students in eight of the 11 elementary schools would go to a different middle school than they would under the current feeder pattern. The only three elementary schools that would continue to go to the same middle school are Jennings and North Stratfield, which would continue to go to Fairfield Woods, and Riverfield, which would continue to go to Roger Ludlowe.

Mitola, who is also a Board of Education member, said avoiding singletons, changes to the high school feeder pattern and splitting an elementary school so its students went to two different middle schools seemed to be the preference of parents based on feedback he's heard. "If you put all those together, it leads you to 'E.' The tradeoff is, there's significant  change to the feeder pattern," he said. "From my perspective, that's my preference."

Tim Kery, the committee chairman and a Board of Education member, said splitting an elementary school was the "worst of all evils" and that a singleton school was interesting. "I vacillate back and forth on that," Kery said at the committee's last meeting, though he seemed to be talking about where elementary school students wind up at high school, not middle school.

"Geographically, it would seem to make sense to move Holland Hill to Warde, but educationally, that might be a problem," Kery said. The current feeder pattern calls for Holland Hill students to go to Tomlinson Middle School and then to Fairfield Ludlowe High School. Under Option E, Holland Hill students would go to Fairfield Woods Middle School and then to Fairfield Ludlowe High School.

Kery added that Option E seemed to put too many students in Tomlinson Middle School under a "perfect utilization" rate. "We could have a problem at Tomlinson because there's no relief valve space," Kery said.

Kery said he liked looking at Option A, thought that would require either making Stratfield School a singleton that went by itself to Fairfield Warde High School among other elementary schools that attend Roger Ludlowe Middle School, or sending Holland Hill School students to Warde High.

School board and committee member Perry Liu said he wouldn't want students in McKinley and Holland Hill elementary schools to attend the same middle school or high school because those elementary schools both receive Title I funds and it would create an "inequity" at the high school level.

Under Option E, McKinley and Holland Hill students would go to different middle schools, and, if the high school feeder pattern were not changed, they would both go to different high schools as well (Holland Hill students would go from Fairfield Woods Middle School to Fairfield Ludlowe High School and McKinley students would go from Tomlinson Middle School to Fairfield Warde High School.)

Mitola said he would want children in middle school to remain in their middle school if the feeder pattern for middle schools were changed. For example, a child who had attended Roger Sherman School and who would enter seventh-grade at Tomlinson Middle School in 2011-12 based on the current feeder pattern shouldn't have to switch to Roger Ludlowe Middle School because Sherman graduates, under the new feeder pattern, switch from Tomlinson to Ludlowe.

"Hopefully, there will be a grandfathering," Mitola said. "It was my intent to grandfather those kids. I think it's even worse to move a middle school kid than an elementary school kid."

Liu wanted the committee to view changes to the middle school feeder pattern in the context of changes in enrollment at elementary schools. Liu was concerned at the committee's most recent meeting that if additions were built onto elementary schools or if revised enrollment projections in elementary schools greatly varied from current projections, the number of students going to individual middle schools could be thrown out of whack and affect any new middle school feeder plan that was adopted.

But Mitola said the Board of Education has solid information on middle school enrollment for six years because students already are in the system. He said the board could examine the impact of any changes at the elementary school level on a new feeder pattern at the time.

"We could make sure something doesn't become skewed one way or the other," Mitola said. "It's important to vote on something and let parents know where they're going to go in a year."

The expansion of classroom space at Fairfield Woods Middle School is scheduled to be done by the 2011-12 school year, and Fairfield Woods would become the second largest middle school in the district (Roger Ludlowe Middle School's capacity is 875 students, and Tomlinson Middle School's capacity is 700 students.) That means four elementary schools, instead of three, would feed into Fairfield Woods, while three elementary schools, instead of four, would feed into Tomlinson.

Mitola said at the last meeting that Fairfield Woods Middle School, instead of Tomlinson Middle School, would become the school where half of the students went to Ludlowe High and the other half went to Warde High.

The full Board of Education would have to approve a new middle school feeder plan. The Facilities, Technology and Long-Term Planning Committee, which includes Board of Education members, would only present a recommendation to the full board.

The next meeting of the Facilities, Technology and Long-Term Planning Committee is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday in Fairfield Warde High School's library.