BOE Delays Redistricting Decision until Thursday

The Board of Education Monday night put off its planned discussion and potential vote on an elementary school redistricting plan for two days.

After more than an hour of public comments and a need to complete its agenda by 11:45 p.m., the school board decided to hold an emergency meeting Wednesday at 7:45 p.m. to discuss and vote on redistricting. Update: The board will hold its meeting on Thursday at 8 p.m.

Earlier in the meeting, the board's Property Committee recommended the full board approve the redistricting plan presented by its consultant two weeks ago, with some modifications.

Those modifications have to do with grandfathering in certain students. Eric Siegel, committee chairman, said fourth and fifth graders would be allowed to stay at their current schools, but not their siblings. If siblings are also grandfathered in, there is a belief that the redistricting would not work, he said. The choice to grandfather or not would be left to the parents.

Siegel said the plan tried to focus on natural boundaries and worked toward maintaining neighborhood schools, he said.

School officials have been examining how to proceed with redistricting to address overcrowding at Glenwood Elementary School.

The proposal shifts some Glenwood students to Hartshorn and others to Deerfield. The proposal also sends some Hartshorn students to Deerfield.

Students who currently go to Glenwood but who would switch to Hartshorn under the new plan are those who live on Inverness Court, Hillside Avenue between Inverness Court and Delwick Lane, Old Short Hills Road between Hillside Way and Brookside Drive (South Side), Hobart Avenue between Inverness Court and Old Short Hills Road, Whitney Road, Haddonfield Road, Midhurst Road, Hawthorne Road and Haddonfield Road.

Current Glenwood students who would transfer to Deerfield are those who live on Old Short Hills Road between Hillside Avenue and Brookside Drive (North Side), Marion Avenue, Hillside Way and Glenbrook Crest.

The new boundary between Hartshorn and Deerfield would be Parsonage Hill Road. That would move Hartshorn students to Deerfield who live on Farmstead Road, Chapel Hill Road, Lenape Road, north side of Parsonage Hill Road, White Oak Ridge Road (to the north corner of Farmstead and White Oak Ridge), Elsway Road, Grosvenor Road and the north side of Old Short Hills Road between Jefferson and Hillside Avenue.

During a Property Committee meeting last week, Glenwood Principal David Jasin and Schools Supt. Richard Brodow reaffirmed the need to reduce the population at Glenwood, Siegel said. Jasin told the committee the population needed to be reduced in order to create educational equity.

Scott Kamber, a Property Committee member, said the committee was told that two sections worth of students—approximately 40—would need to move.

"This is everyone's last resort," he said.

Kamber said the majority of e-mails he's received seem to be supporting the proposal, while most of the parents who have commented in person at the board of education meetings seem to be opposed.