The East Rockaway School District is beginning an exploratory review of whether to realign its elementary schools into a K–3 primary building and a 4–6 intermediate building, a configuration commonly referred to as the “Princeton Plan.”
Superintendent James DeTommaso said the proposal is in its earliest stages and emphasized that no decisions have been made.
“We’re in the discussion phase,” DeTommaso said. “We’ve been looking at a few things through the years. And it’s my job to offer to the community what I think the best structural change would be for the students, the teachers in the community, and we’re discussing it, as simple as that, we’re talking about it.”
DeTommaso said the district will begin working with teachers after the new year, followed by meetings with community members.
“I’ll lay out all the options for the community to see, and they’ll give us feedback,” he said.
East Rockaway, one of Nassau County’s smallest districts with roughly 1,100 students, last examined its building structure more than a decade ago. DeTommaso said the community and its demographics have changed significantly since then, calling the review an opportunity to evaluate what configuration best serves current needs.
“We're a totally different community than we were in 2012,” he said.
Assistant Superintendent Sean Murray said the district’s approach this time differs from previous attempts to introduce a similar model.
“In the past, the administration went to the community [and] said, this is the plan, and it was outcry,” Murray said. “What we’re doing instead is, these are the ideas. Let’s make a plan together.”
DeTommaso noted that demographic shifts and enrollment disparities between the district’s two elementary schools, Centre Avenue and Rhame Avenue, have prompted the discussion.
According to district reports, Centre Avenue Elementary had 241 students in 2023-24, while Rhame Avenue’s enrollment had 316 students in the same year.
“What ends up happening is you have to hire staff, and then when you’re hiring staff, that’s more money on the budget, then that’s putting a more of a burden on the community,” DeTommaso said. “But if we could combine resources and split, we have the people here to do it.”
The “Princeton Plan” model, first developed in Princeton, New Jersey, in the 1940s, was initially implemented as a means of addressing racial segregation and equalizing class sizes between schools. The system divides elementary students by grade level rather than neighborhood, typically grouping early grades in one building and upper-elementary grades in another.
Over time, the approach has been adopted by a number of small and mid-sized school districts across the Northeast, including some on Long Island, as a way to balance enrollment and better allocate resources.
Research on academic outcomes has been mixed. Some studies suggest that intermediate-grade schools can strengthen curriculum alignment and social development, while others find no clear advantage over traditional K–5 or K–6 configurations.
Supporters of the Princeton Plan argue that organizing schools into narrower grade bands, such as kindergarten through first grade, second through fourth, and fifth through sixth, allows teachers to specialize in a smaller developmental range and encourages collaboration among staff. While few studies use the Princeton Plan name specifically, research on grade-span configuration supports these claims. In “Spending, Size, and Grade Span in K–8 Schools,” published by New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service in 2009, scholars found that schools with narrower grade spans often had smaller and more consistent class sizes, which can promote focused instruction and smoother collaboration among teachers.
Similarly, a 2018 study, “Grade Configurations, Organizational Structures, and Teacher Collaboration” from the International Journal of Educational Research, emphasized that aligning school structures with developmental needs improves teacher collaboration and curriculum coherence.
Critics of the Princeton Plan warn that it may increase the number of school transitions for students, potentially affecting academic performance. In “Stuck in the Middle: Impacts of Grade Configuration in Public Schools,” published in the Economics of Education Review in 2010, researchers reported that students who transitioned to middle school in sixth or seventh grade experienced significant declines in English and math achievement, with effects persisting through eighth grade.
Similarly, the 2013 study “The Impact of Alternative Grade Configurations on Student Outcomes Through Middle and High School” in the Journal of Public Economics, found that transitions at sixth and seventh grades were associated with lasting achievement losses and higher absenteeism.
The district plans to form a committee of educators to study possible effects on instruction, operations and the overall learning environment before any recommendations are made. DeTommaso said community participation will be essential as the process continues.
After the committee’s review, the district will host public forums to share findings and gather feedback before presenting any formal proposal to the board.
While the discussion is still preliminary, DeTommaso said the process will focus on collaboration and transparency.
“We’re talking about it,” he said. “We’ll develop a plan with the teachers and bring it to them, and see what they think, and then try to poke holes in it.”
