Trinity considers redistricting

Trinity Area School District Superintendent Paul Kasunich plans to recommend that the school board redistrict 82 students from Trinity West Elementary to Trinity North Elementary to balance enrollments.
Kasunich said at Wednesday’s education committee meeting that the move would resolve Trinity West’s overcrowding while still giving the board time to determine what the best grade configurations are for the entire district. The recommendation would essentially undo redistricting from Trinity North to Trinity West five years ago.
He said he’s not comfortable making a recommendation about grade configurations without doing more research and getting the community involved.
“We need to spend more time looking at the alternatives,” he said.
The alternatives include leaving the grade configurations as they are; keeping the current grade configurations with class size reduction; moving fifth grade to the middle school and eighth grade to the high school; housing two grades in each elementary school; and moving kindergarten to the high school.
Kasunich said he would like to bring up his redistricting recommendation at the March 17 regular board meeting and then send a letter with the parents of students who would be redistricted. He said he wants to meet with those parents to talk about why the move is important and how it would work.
He said the redistricted students would not be on the bus for an inordinate amount of time and that the change would not make Trinity North overcrowded.
Dennis McWreath, school board member and education committee chairman, said he disagrees with the recommendation.
He said Trinity has spent 10 years talking about grade configurations and he thinks a decision that includes addressing Trinity West’s overcrowding needs to be made for the next school year.
Simply moving kids from Trinity West to Trinity North does nothing to enhance the educational programs, he said.
“We’re simply kicking the can down the road,” he said. “I think this is a Band-Aid.”
The rest of the committee said something needs to be done about Trinity West overcrowding for the fall, but a decision about grade configurations will take more time.
“I think the suggestion by the superintendent is something that has to be done,” said school board member Jack Keisling.
School board member Tamara Salvatori said she was adamant that fifth-graders from Trinity West not be redistricted this year because they were the students moved from Trinity North. She didn’t think it was fair for them to be moved twice. Younger students at Trinity West did not attend Trinity North before the redistricting.
However, she said, something needs to be done about the overcrowding at Trinity West for the fall, which is so bad that students barely have time to get through the lunch line and eat.
“The whole day is a mess because they are overcrowded,” she said.
Salvatori said making a decision about grade configurations for the fall is too soon. Every February, the discussion comes up, but that time of year is too late, she said. Instead, it needs to be a year-round discussion, Salvatori said.
“My issue is it’s going to take a long time to put it together,” she said.