District begins exploring grade reconfiguration of schools
The Spencer-Van Etten Central School District Board of Education is investigating whether it should change the grade configurations of its three schools for the 2024-25 school year.
The district’s enrollment has declined, and the shift in population is causing the district to look at whether the current grade configuration best serves its students.
“We want our students to have the best academic experience possible, and we think there may be a way to enhance our course offerings with more efficient and effective use of resources,” Superintendent Barbara Case said. “While we will be exploring grade configurations at all three school buildings, please know that we will not be looking to close any schools.”
Part of the district’s strategic plan that was adopted by the board in May is to explore re-alignment of the schools to maximize staff and resources. The plan, “Blueprint for Excellence,” was developed with feedback from board members, district staff, students, families and community members and resulted in three priority areas: well-rounded students, the student experience and community connections.
During the plan’s development process, realigning the grades was identified as part of the student experience priority area. Currently, the elementary school serves prekindergarten through grade 4, grades 5-8 are at the middle school and 9-12 are at the high school.
“At this point, we have some ideas of what may work to better serve our students, but we don’t know for sure what the right answer is,” Case said.
To explore its options, the district is working with educational consulting firm Castallo & Silky to conduct research into how to efficiently staff SVE schools to better utilize staff members’ expertise. The firm is expected to present its findings to the Leadership Team in March, and information will be subsequently shared with the board prior to final 2024-25 budget discussions. Following that, the district will share the report and consultant’s recommendations on the district website and at staff and community meetings where questions and concerns can be discussed before the board makes any decisions.
“We want this to be a very transparent process since we know any proposed changes would impact students and their families, district staff and the community,” Case said. “It’s important that we are all on the same page and that we are moving forward together as we continue to seek out opportunities to innovate, evolve and strive for excellence in all that we do.”
A series of common grade configuration questions and answers are available on the district website and more will be added as they come up.