Redistricting Would Affect Groton Elementary Schools

Every elementary school in Groton will be affected to some degree by redistricting due to the decision to consolidate middle schools, the superintendent and school facilities director said Wednesday.

The redistricting plan has not been made public, but a draft will be presented to the board of education today. The plan will be discussed at the school board meeting Monday.

The school department had earlier discussed two plans for redistricting schools, but Wes Greenleaf, director of buildings and grounds for Groton Public Schools, said the department discovered neither plan worked.

Shifting Boundaries

The new plan would shift boundaries around each of the elementary schools, sometimes moving just a few students, sometimes moving more. S.B. Butler Elementary would be most affected by the redistricting plan, Greenleaf said.

Superintendent Paul Kadri said once the elementary boundaries are redrawn, students from each of the elementary schools would feed into one middle school or the other.

“One of the goals of the (school) board was to see if we could have direct feeder schools, so certainly I am going to be presenting to the board a solution that has direct feeder schools,” Kadri said.  “We are going to try to keep the integrity of our current boundaries as much as possible.”

Kadri made the comments during a meeting at Fitch High School to discuss concerns about middle school consolidation, including redistricting. About a dozen people attended.

Parents' Concerns

Deborah Johnson, co-chair of the Cutler Middle School Parent Teacher Organization, said she believes more would have stopped in if they realized elementary school boundaries were being moved.

“I think parents at elementary schools are going to surprised that they’re impacted, because that was not communicated to them,” said Johnson, also a member of the Groton Parent Council.

Kim Wardlaw, a parent who lives near Fitch Middle School, said she’s concerned that the changes will divide her neighborhood further. She said her son, 10, attends a different elementary than his friends because of earlier boundary changes.

“I will do everything I can to get my son to go to the school where I think he should go, not just for academic reasons, but for social reasons,” she said. “He’s been very segregated from kids who live in the neighborhood.”

Racial Balance

Greenleaf said the school department had to consider many issues, including capacity of the schools, transportation, time children would spend on the bus and racial balance.

The state notified Groton last winter that Catherine Kolnaski Magnet School, which has a minority population of 60.3 percent, was out of compliance with racial balance rules. A school is considered racially imbalanced if the minority population is greater than 25 percentage points above the district average.

Kadri said he working with the Groton Education Association to finalize teaching assignments. School officials met last week met with teachers at the middle schools about their preferences, and expect to know by late this week or early next week where staff will be assigned, he said.

Kadri held his first meeting with student leaders from the middle schools Thursday. He said they discussed everything from vending machines to the size of lockers.

School Bus Runs

Seth Danner, assistant principal of Fitch Middle School, said students are interested in the possibility of early and late buses to take them to activities like intramural sports.

Under Groton’s bus contract, the district has access to buses from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m., but must handle runs for high school, middle school and elementary school during that time, said Carolyn Dickey, school department business manager.

High school students are dropped off at 7:10 a.m. and middle school students are dropped off at 7:50 a.m., she said. Given this, early buses would have to leave quite early; as much as an hour before the high school drop off, she said.

Groton is also trying to expand its breakfast program, which picks up some students 10 minutes earlier to take them to school to have breakfast. The breakfast runs might trump runs for activities, she said.