Braintree Public Schools presents seven redistricting options, including possible closures and reuse of Old South

District staff and consultants from AppGeo/Sanborn presented seven redistricting and consolidation options at a public forum, outlining how closing one or more elementary schools and reopening Old South could change elementary attendance boundaries, building utilization and middle-school feeder patterns.

Jim (staff member) said the presentation was intended to solicit community feedback and that “Everything you will see tonight remains a work in progress. None of this is a final product.” Priya Sankalia, an AppGeo representative, walked participants through how student geocoding, neighborhood “components” and scenario simulations produced the options the district is considering.

The proposals respond to three related pressures: uneven class sizes across the six elementary schools, aging facilities and the district’s tight operating budget. District data presented at the forum show wide variance in utilization and class sizes: the slide deck lists Clarity at 368 capacity, Highlands at 398, Hollis at 564, Liberty at 376, Morrison at 400 and Ross at 292; Highlands was shown at about 89% utilization and Liberty at about 99%, while Hollis and Ross were shown at roughly 65% and 64% respectively. Jim said those building-capacity figures came from a survey of principals about classroom spaces.

The consultant team said it built 36 neighborhood "components" — discrete, walkable pieces of the town used as the building blocks for scenarios — and ran more than 30 permutations combining those components to model where students would attend under different closure sets. The seven options presented all assume Old South would be reopened; the options differ in which pair of schools (or single schools) would close and how students would be reassigned.

Priya Sankalia described the methodology: student addresses were geocoded, components were created with attention to neighborhood boundaries and streets, and an automated workflow evaluated capacity, class-size balance, walkability and transportation under each scenario. “These are these discrete areas or what we're calling components, which become the building blocks for scenarios to kind of think of them as puzzle pieces,” she said.

The presentation highlighted several recurring findings: Ross is the district’s smallest and most financially inefficient school and, in some scenarios, Ross students can be absorbed by nearby schools without immediate overcrowding. Morrison is a large school; closing Morrison in models tended to create overcrowding at neighboring schools. Several scenarios that would close schools recently improved with Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) funds were flagged as problematic because MSBA grants could be subject to recapture if a funded building is closed. Jim gave roof-project examples and MSBA contributions: Flaherty roof project $3,600,000 (MSBA $1,100,000), Hollis $3,000,000 (MSBA $1,000,000), Liberty $2,300,000 (MSBA $1,100,000) and Highlands $1,300,000 (MSBA $600,000), and reminded listeners that MSBA partnerships factor into closure decisions.

The team showed specific constraints for south-side consolidation: a previously considered plan to consolidate Liberty and Highlands into Old South is no longer viable because Liberty and Highlands together now total about 728 students, which exceeds Old South’s cited capacity of 564. The presentation also noted that moving large numbers of students from one side of town to the other could disrupt the middle-school feeder balance; the consultants said keeping the South Middle School and East Middle School feeder numbers stable was a priority.

The seven options ranged from a “business-as-usual” baseline to permutations that close Highlands plus another school (Ross, Morrison, Flaherty or Hollis), or alternate pairs such as Liberty and Ross or Hollis and Ross. In many options the team proposed two ways to arrange south-side assignments (for example, keeping Liberty’s current components intact or making Old South contiguous by shifting some Liberty components). The consultants said each option was evaluated against the project’s guiding principles: financial sustainability, use of the facilities report, minimizing student change, using Old South, preserving separate special-program spaces and avoiding splitting elementary attendance between middle schools.

No formal recommendation or vote was taken. Jim said the next steps are to collect feedback, refine scenarios and present a reduced set of recommendations to the School Committee around Feb. 10; the committee has committed to a public hearing and would be responsible for any final decisions, with a vote tentatively expected in early March. Jim said the district will distribute the full slide deck and survey via Parent Square and post materials on a project web page.

The presentation included discussion of special-education program placement under different closure scenarios, increased transportation needs in options that create discontiguous attendance areas, and the potential for program or staffing cuts if no consolidation is adopted and budget pressures continue. Consultants and staff repeatedly emphasized that the scenarios are preliminary and that community feedback will guide which options are forwarded to the School Committee.

The district asked residents to review the full slide deck and complete the online survey; the presenters said video of the forum will be posted and that AppGeo/Sanborn will incorporate community input before presenting refined recommendations to the School Committee.