West Seneca outlines redistricting options to address uneven class sizes, seeks public feedback

WEST SENECA, N.Y. — West Seneca Central School District Superintendent Lisa Kruger and facilitator Tony Day presented a set of redistricting and reconfiguration options at a community forum Thursday, saying the district needs to rebalance enrollment and classroom space to reduce large class sizes and provide adequate instructional space for special education and intervention services.

Kruger said Clinton Elementary School currently has some upper-grade classes “between 26 and 28” students while other schools average “between 20 and 22,” and that Allendale Elementary has usable classroom space problems that force four literacy interventionists to work “packed in a classroom” serving small groups of four to six children. “We want to deliver that kind of personalized instruction and educational experience for all students,” Kruger said.

The nut graffrom district leaders: the redistricting committee — a mix of staff, parents, administrators and community members reconvened this fall after a prior plan was rejected — was charged by the Board of Education to recommend two to three feasible courses of action that meet board priorities and can be implemented, with a target to present recommendations to the board before the end of the school year and a tentative implementation earliest of September 2026.

Day, the executive director of the Western New York Education Service Council and the committee facilitator, outlined three broad approaches the committee is required to examine: (1) redistricting that keeps current grade configurations (K–5 elementary, 6–8 middle, 9–12 high school) but adjusts attendance lines; (2) reconfiguration that changes grade-level organization (examples offered included K–2/K–3 and 3–5 groupings or four K–3 neighborhood schools feeding a districtwide 4–5 building); and (3) repositioning programs (moving specialty programs to buildings with more space). Day said the committee must also test each option against current staffing and projected enrollments so the solution holds up if numbers change.

The presentation used enrollment and facility capacity analysis to show tradeoffs. Under a pure redistricting option, Day said Clinton would need to reduce enrollment by roughly a school’s worth of students (he identified about a ten-student shortfall in one explanation) to avoid repeated class sizes in the high 20s; Allendale would also need to lose students to free up intervention space. At the middle level, the district’s two middle schools are unevenly populated: Day stated West Middle School had about 787 students compared with East Middle School’s 569, and that roughly 150 students from parts of West’s current attendance area would need to be reassigned to East to provide dedicated classroom space for world language and health teachers (who are currently “on carts” and moving from room to room).

One reconfiguration option Day presented would create four K–3 neighborhood schools and a single districtwide 4–5 building. That model would concentrate fourth- and fifth-grade students in one larger building — Day said that would immediately reduce occurrences of classes in the high 20s at the intermediate grades because all staff for those grades would be centralized. He also warned that a 4–5 building could become large (he cited a ballpark figure of about 880 students across the two grades) and would require intentional design to preserve smaller, relationship-driven learning spaces and sufficient administrative coverage.

District financial considerations surfaced repeatedly. Day said the Winchester building is currently leased by Erie 1 BOCES and that lease revenue is about $600,000 per year. If BOCES relocates as anticipated in a future move, reopening Winchester as a district school would require sustained operating costs — Day gave a conservative reopening estimate of about $750,000 — producing a potential net budget impact of roughly $1.3 million unless the board offsets it with cuts or additional revenue.

On implementation timing and process, Day and Kruger emphasized the district is gathering public comment before narrowing options. Day noted the redistricting committee meets next on Thursday, March 20, and the committee aims to advance work toward a possible committee-level determination at a May 22 meeting and a board presentation around June 1. Kruger added the district would keep materials (presentation slides, meeting minutes, committee work) available on the district website and asked residents to use provided QR codes or paper comment forms to submit feedback.

Community members raised questions about transportation, sibling placement, student social-emotional impacts, parent and PTA involvement in newly configured grades, and costs. Tony Day said that transportation capacity and bus routing would be part of the deeper analysis if the committee advances an option; he said the district’s transportation staff would be consulted before recommending any plan. Kruger emphasized the district’s intent to use the year or more before any implementation for transition planning, including open houses and programs to ease student moves.

No formal votes or board actions occurred at the forum. The redistricting committee has been asked to return two to three viable plans that meet the Board’s priorities; the board itself retains decision authority. Day said the committee will test options against multiple constraints — classroom counts, available rooms, staffing, free and reduced lunch concentrations, special education placements, and likely transportation impacts — and will not recommend plans that cannot be implemented operationally.

Ending: District leaders asked for public input to refine options and reiterated that no single plan is a “front-runner.” The redistricting committee will use community feedback and technical analysis to narrow options for later, deeper review by the committee and the board.