Andover school committee reviews final redistricting scenarios; considers grandfathering, transportation and special-education impacts

Andover Public Schools’ school committee reviewed a final set of proposed elementary and middle‑school boundary scenarios at a Feb. 27 workshop and asked administrators to model implementation details — including grandfathering, early enrollment and transportation impacts — before the committee votes on maps March 20.

The committee’s presentation and discussion, led by redistricting consultants Nick Stellitano and Katie Tartaglia of Dillinger Rad and district staff, focused on a new elementary plan (scenario 7) paired with a third middle‑school plan intended to reduce high utilization at Doherty Middle School while increasing use of the new West Elementary building. Lauren (School Committee member) said, “We determined early on that implementation would begin in fall of 2026,” to allow time for transportation modeling, student-information updates and staffing adjustments.

The consultants emphasized two tradeoffs informing the revised maps: keeping elementary cohorts together as much as possible to preserve continuity into middle school, and rebalancing building utilization so older facilities are not overcrowded. Nick Stellitano said the design goal included minimizing overcrowding in Doherty, noting, “The Doherty is an older building that was designed more for elementary school students, not middle school students.” Under the scenario the committee discussed, Doherty’s projected utilization drops from the high‑80s percentage previously modeled to about 83 percent; West Elementary would be at about 87 percent, a level consultants described as appropriate for the new facility.

Consultants reported that public engagement has been extensive. The process began in October 2024 with multiple School Committee and community forums, several interactive mapping rounds and two district surveys. They said an earlier interactive map round produced roughly 550 annotations overall; feedback specific to the middle‑school proposals was lower (about 100 responses) because the February vacation coincided with the feedback window. A final community forum is scheduled for March 8 at the Robb Center, and the committee plans to receive final recommendations and vote on March 20.

Several technical and implementation issues drove committee questions. District staff explained that utilization calculations were adjusted to reflect where certain special‑education programs are housed rather than the home addresses of students who attend those programs; that change shifted some school utilizations slightly. Committee members asked for clarification about which programs are fixed to particular schools; staff confirmed, for example, that the SAIL program is located at Wood Hill Middle School and that students who attend that program are counted at Wood Hill in the updated modeling.

Transportation and walkability were recurring concerns. Members and consultants noted that some neighborhoods currently produce many students who walk to Doherty; moving parts of those neighborhoods into West’s attendance area could create new bus needs or require safety improvements for walking routes. District staff warned that grandfathering choices affect bus routing and costs: a small number of grandfathered students might not change bus needs, while a much larger grandfathering pool could require additional buses and staff and raise direct transportation costs.

Committee members pressed for clarity about implementation options the district will present on March 8 and March 20. Consultants said they will present several implementation approaches — immediate implementation for all students, phased implementation, grandfathering for students in specific grades (for example, fifth or eighth graders), and other variants that could be geographic or grade‑based. District staff said they will model the staffing and transportation implications for a narrow set of committee‑preferred options rather than preparing logistics for many permutations.

No final boundary vote was taken at the workshop. The only formal action recorded during the meeting was a motion to move into executive session to discuss collective bargaining; that motion passed by roll‑call vote 5–0. The committee will reconvene in open session at approximately 7 p.m., after the executive session.

The committee asked the public to continue submitting comments through the interactive map (open through March 8) and announced the March 8 in‑person forum at the Robb Senior Center, 30 Whittier Court, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., where the consultants said they will present implementation approaches in greater detail.

Quotes used in this report are drawn from the Feb. 27 workshop transcript and attributed to the speakers listed below.