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Redistricting committee presents proposals, identifies capacity limits and trade-offs
Summary
Tony Day of the Western New York Educational Service Council updated the board on redistricting work: the committee tested prior plans with current enrollment, found limited capacity at some schools, and said reopening Winchester would add recurring costs of about $1 million that must be funded sustainably.
Tony Day of the Western New York Educational Service Council told the board on Jan. 7 that the redistricting committee has run current enrollment through five elementary-level scenarios developed in 2023 and is now refining proposals to balance capacity while limiting student travel and disruption.
The committee found no simple redistricting fix that fully resolves capacity issues at Clinton and Allendale without creating new pressure in other schools. One working option tested by the committee would reassign parts of Clinton to Northwood and West Elk, reposition some segments of Allendale to nearby schools, and move certain universal prekindergarten and self-contained special-education classes to other sites to create capacity. Those changes would be phased in over two years to reduce the number of students who would have to move in a single year.
Day warned that reopening Winchester as a full school would create ongoing personnel and operating costs — principal, nurse, counselors and other staff — that could approach $1 million a year and therefore require a sustainable revenue source rather than one-time reserves. The committee also discussed middle-school options that would move sixth graders in phases to rebalance building space; one scenario would shift roughly 50 sixth-graders a year over three years to equalize middle-school capacity and could increase East High School enrollment over time by about 175 students.
Committee materials and minutes distributed to the board noted trade-offs: preserving neighborhood assignments and k–5 configurations can reduce disruption but limits where capacity can be created, while larger reconfiguration options (for example intermediate-grade campuses) would affect more students but may be easier to accept when presented as a district-wide change. Day said the committee will reconvene to refine plans and develop additional options for board review, including possible reconfiguration scenarios and financial estimates for reopening buildings.
