by Mike Schnitzel
While waivers can be granted now to give incoming seventh-graders a choice of which secondary school they attend, when maximum building capacity is reached, students choices may become limited.
With that in mind, the Valley Stream High School District Board of Education has approved a policy that is designed to deal with waivers and overcrowding, which it detailed at the Nov. 8 board meeting.
As it stands, the district's waivers policy allows incoming seventh-graders a choice, provided they submit their requests prior to the Feb. 15 filing deadline. "This policy allows people to select the schools they want to attend when they first enter our school district," said Superintendent Dr. Marc Bernstein. "Right now we have reasonable flexibility [to allow that]."
But there is concern that North High School, and to a lesser extent, according to Bernstein, South High School, could reach their functional capacities within the next few years. Functional capacity is the maximum number of students a school can accommodate while providing equal educational opportunities to all of them, in keeping with the district's efforts to keep class size down. The number of rooms, their size and use are taken into consideration when calculating that capacity, Bernstein explained.
There are 1,180 students enrolled at North, which has a functional capacity of 1,225. "As long as there's room, students should be allowed to go to the school where they're most comfortable," said Trustee Bill Stris. "But pretty soon [North] will be full."
In light of that, Policy 5110 was developed to establish a procedure by which Bernstein will determine which waiver requests to grant as a school's projected enrollment nears and exceeds its functional capacity. All requests for students with siblings in the school will be approved unless the number of those requests exceeds that capacity. If it does not, the remaining requests will be granted based on a lottery selection, the procedure for which is yet to be determined.
Some of those who attended the meeting expressed concern about the new policy, which they felt was unfair. "We believe that the students of [James A.] Dever [Elementary School] should be allowed to attend North to give them the support system that they need going into seventh grade," said Ann Marie Paraszczuk, president of the PTA at Dever. Under the current system, Dever students are split between North and Central. Seven of the 10 elementary school sin the district are split between two secondary schools, according to Bernstein.
District 13 parent Joe Araneo worried about the impact that the new policy would have on his children. "Historically, kids from Malverne have been allowed to go to North," he said. "You claim that the board has the best interests of the children at heart. I don't think this is in their best interests."
Another member of the audience asked Bernstein if the district would consider adding space to any of the school buildings or building a new middle school. Bernstein replied that he could not justify that expense to the community when there was capacity in other schools, and that the district would not be able to receive any building money from the state in that case, leaving the taxpayers with the full funding burden.
Several residents questioned whether the board would consider amending the attendance areas for the high schools, saying that they are antiquated and don't make much sense. Bernstein said that the zones were established because they were logical and worked at the time, but he acknowledged that they had not been updated in about 40 years.
School Board President Dr. Frank Chiachiere thanked the residents for their concerns, and said that they would be taken into consideration by the board. "We have a policy committee and we are constantly looking at policy," said Chiachiere. "They are living, breathing documents."
Policy 5110 will take effect after it is read to the public for a second time at the next Board of Education meeting on Dec. 13.
Comments about this story? MSchnitzel@lih-erald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 265.
