{"id":7304,"date":"2014-09-10T14:40:32","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T18:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=7304"},"modified":"2014-09-10T14:40:12","modified_gmt":"2014-09-10T18:40:12","slug":"ucf-to-look-at-possible-redistricting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=7304","title":{"rendered":"UCF to look at possible redistricting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seeks outside consultant to evaluate population growth<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"UCFRedistrict\"<\/a>EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District began a process Monday night that could, eventually, lead to redistricting the sending areas of the district\u2019s four elementary schools.<\/p>\n

Aware that the subject could generate emotional responses \u2014 positive and negative \u2014 to the idea, district officials pledged to conduct an open, thoughtful process with no predetermined outcome. About a dozen district parents were at Monday night\u2019s Board of Education work session, to ask questions and make suggestions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not take this up lightly,\u201d Superintendent of Schools John Sanville said. \u201cConsidering that this is an emotional issue for many residents \u2014 and one of great interest to the entire community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The numbers, though, district officials say, suggest it is an issue that needs to be looked at. The Board of Education is expected to approve putting a Request For Proposal out next Monday for an outside demographic study to look at the current and likely future school populations and suggest potential remedies.<\/p>\n

The plan calls for forming a local committee made up of parents from the four schools, administrators, educators and other stakeholders, as well as holding community conversation events for further public input on the matter. The current timeline calls for potential board action \u2014 if it is determined to be needed \u2014 in March, 2015.<\/p>\n

Currently, Pocopson Elementary School (652 students for the 2014-15 school year) is close to its operational limits, while both Hillendale (328 students) and Unionville (395 students) elementary schools have spare classrooms, despite being smaller school buildings, as both schools have seen student numbers fall in recent years, while Pocopson\u2019s have grown.<\/p>\n

Projections suggest that Pocopson could be short by as many as two classrooms by the 2018-19 school year, which would impact non-core programs such as music, arts and computer studies \u2014 which currently have their own rooms at all four schools. Conversely, Unionville is expected to need two less classrooms by that same school year and Hillendale, one less.<\/p>\n

Despite those facts, Sanville said, the district isn\u2019t committed to redistricting if it is determined that the current student population at Pocopson will fall in the coming years. Previously, the district avoided a redistricting process in 2011 by moving all district Pre-K students to Unionville Elementary School, which freed up a classroom at Pocopson.<\/p>\n

Officials emphasized some key principles that will drive the process:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The district remains committed to having four kindergarten through fifth grade elementary schools.
\n\u2022 Each of the four schools should provide students with the same academic experience.
\n\u2022 No decisions will be made until \u201call stakeholders have been engaged in the study.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, in terms of the final solution, district officials outlined five additional principles they expect to be applied to whatever is finally decided:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Rejection of the idea of using trailers at a school if there are empty classrooms at another school.
\n\u2022 Avoid splitting neighborhoods between schools.
\n\u2022 Develop a six-year plan, so no student is affected twice by redistricting.
\n\u2022 Minimize the number of students impacted.
\n\u2022 School boundaries will be contiguous.<\/p>\n

The current school borders have been in place since 1998, prior to the opening of Pocopson Elementary School, but not put into effect until 2001, when Pocopson opened. Previously, the district used a K-2, 3-5 system, with the then three schools. A review in 2008 opted for no changes, while subsequent discussions of reverting to the K-2, 3-5 plan was set aside after the concept proved unpopular with a majority of community members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seeks outside consultant to evaluate population growth By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District began a process Monday night that could, eventually, lead to redistricting the sending areas of the district\u2019s four elementary schools. Aware that the subject could generate emotional responses \u2014 positive and negative \u2014 to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[100,3126,2806,1192,881,1193,615],"class_list":["post-7304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-board-of-education","tag-chadds-ford-elementary-school","tag-hillendale-elementary-school","tag-pocopson-elementary-school","tag-redistricting","tag-unionville-elementary-school","tag-unionville-chadds-ford-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7305,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7304\/revisions\/7305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}