South Huntington schools ditch plan to realign elementary grades

The South Huntington school board has scrapped a plan to reconfigure the district’s elementary school buildings, instead opting to establish focus groups to address key transportation and prekindergarten issues.

The change came shortly after Superintendent Vito D’Elia presented four options earlier this month that would have changed the current landscape of the district’s K-6 schools. The proposals, officials said, were created to address issues such as growing pre-K enrollment, the district’s bus fleet and aging portable classrooms.

But the plans were met with opposition from residents, who raised concerns about how the changes would impact extracurricular activities, diversity in schools and growing costs.

"After receiving community feedback on the Reimagining South Huntington proposal, the Board of Education has decided in favor of continuing the current alignment of kindergarten-to-second grade primary schools and third-to-fifth grade Intermediate Schools in the South Huntington School District," the school board said in a statement.

Dana Calvet, a parent in the district, said she's happy with the decision and hopes "that it’s done in a meaningful way and that the community as a whole can be generally better informed moving forward."

Before the decision, D’Elia, at a board meeting last Wednesday, recommended that the board keep the current configuration of schools but said the aging portables need to be addressed. School officials had considered an option that would replace four portable buildings.

"There was a lot of community input between phone calls, emails, numerous in-person meetings with parents expressing their genuine love of the current K-2, 3-5 model," D’Elia said Tuesday.

D’Elia also said the board and administration will explore other possibilities for a permanent solution for the aging portables, including creative ways to fund brick-and-mortar structures.

The school board is establishing a process for choosing community members for the focus groups and other guidelines, according to school officials.

One group will focus on developing “appropriate and equitable” start and end times for all schools to reduce the district’s reliance on outside transportation contractors, according to the board's statement. The other will examine the appropriate length for the pre-K school day, acceptable start and end times, and whether to provide before-and-after care.

The board will consider a location to house the district’s pre-K program with the objective of offering universal pre-K to all South Huntington residents, the statement said.

The district currently seats 150 prekindergarten students and has a waitlist of about 60. The proposals had created an opportunity to more than double that number of seats, officials previously said. The district lost more than $900,000 in state aid allocated for pre-K classes because of the lack of space.

The board also said it would explore potential uses of the former Memorial Junior High School building, which is currently being leased by a private school, and will conduct a traffic study. 

Cortney Enderle, a parent with two children in the district, said she was thrilled the board listened to the community. She agrees with the district’s direction but said she hopes school officials can oversee the focus groups to provide assistance with regulations and other educational aspects.

“It’ll give you a better idea where to go,” she said.