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Greece Central reports new enrollments, transportation improvements and rollout of screening system
Summary
District officials told the board they logged just over 800 new enrollments (excluding pre-K), expanded pre-K capacity, saw reduced transportation complaints after recruitment, and are rolling out a safety screening system that could result in students being sent home for refusal.
District leaders gave the board a multi-department update on opening the 2025–26 school year, reporting enrollment gains, staffing and transportation progress, capital upgrades and a phased safety-screening rollout.
"For this school year we had, not including pre-K, just over 800 new enrollments to the district," said Kevin, an enrollment presenter, who added that including pre-K the district saw more than 1,100 new enrollments. He cautioned that state reporting systems had not yet published the current-school-year site-level data and the district had to extract live enrollment-system numbers to estimate the figures.
Officials said pre-K expansion brought total pre-K enrollment to 346 across district sites, an increase of 34 full‑day placements and the opening of two additional full‑day classrooms (for 18 full‑day and four half‑day classrooms total). Presenters said the district reduced the pre‑K waitlist by 47 children but 84 children remained on the waitlist.
Human Resources and transportation staff reported busy summer onboarding: the district welcomed 221 new employees from outside the district and promoted roughly 41 staff internally. On transportation, staff said the district operates 201 bus runs, with 120 runs facilitated within Greece, 117 drivers directly employed by the district and 81 contracted runs, as well as 41 midday runs. The district serves 100 schools overall (52 private/parochial/charters accounting for about 800 students on those runs), 30 out‑of‑district runs for special-education placements, and roughly 8,500 students are transported daily; staff said just over 1,000 students walk to school.
District capital-project staff said work wrapping under the 'Reimagine Greece' program included elevator replacements at Athena campus, replacement of GPAC fire alarms, gym lighting upgrades, cast‑iron domestic water main replacement, and window replacements funded in part by an ARP liquidation initiative. The Athena media center remains under renovation (target early-November completion) and five playground projects await State Education Department approval; some pavilion work is expected in the 2026 budget cycle.
On safety and security, district staff described a phased rollout of new screening technology (bollards and bag scanners) at athletic events and selected schools. The presenter said early implementation added 35–40 minutes to building entry on the first days but that the delay was reduced within the week. The district has communicated to families that students who refuse screening will not be allowed to enter and could be sent home and marked absent; the presenter said refusal of secondary screening could result in out‑of‑school suspension. Staff reported high compliance and said the system has improved enforcement of cell-phone rules.
Board members asked follow-up questions about how many new students actually attend district buildings and about first-week transportation performance. Officials said they will confirm school-site enrollment figures once the state reporting warehouse updates next week and credited recruitment efforts, improved communication and extra drivers for a substantial drop in transportation calls and complaints versus last year.
The presentation closed with acknowledgement of staff efforts to manage technology outages on opening day, and praise for school-level communication that kept families informed during delays.
