Parents of new Scotia-Glenville Central School District students will finally have answers about where their children will attend elementary school in September. After months of board of education discussions, staff input, focus groups, public forums and high emotions, the district approved the use of swing zones at the Monday, Feb. 12, meeting. The decision came after a split vote of 4 to 2, with one abstention.
The swing zones mean the approval of placing new students who in the past would have gone to Glendaal Elementary School, in Sacandaga Elementary, and those from Glen Worden to Lincoln Elementary.
This will create a Glendaal zone consisting of Bartlett Place, MacArthur Drive, Marcellis Place, Marion Boulevard, Pine Street, Rockland Road, part of Sacandaga Road, Vernon Boulevard, Virginia Boulevard, parts of Vley Road and Western Boulevard. New students in this area will attend Sacandaga.
In the Glen-Worden Zone, new students on parts of North Ballston Avenue, Irving Road, Knickerbocker Road, Lee Avenue, Livingston Avenue, Schonowe Avenue, and Washington Road will attend Lincoln Elementary.
The new students will be defined as children new to a school with no other siblings in attendance.
Our main objective has been and will continue to be to keep our kids in the schools they are currently in and to keep families together. At this point we need to make a decision and move forwards with this, said board member Margaret Smith.
Smith warned other board members that they need to cutback on making exceptions to the swing zone policy. These exceptions are `special per-missions` that the board has historically granted. Proponents of the swing zones decision say it will take too long to even out enrollments and to build capacity if the board is not careful with making exceptions.
`If we continue to grandfather kids in every year, we will never make progress. we need to capitalize and build capacity,` said Smith.
Board members Gary Normington, Joe Crisafulli and Jon Yaglieski also voted in favor of the swing zones. Ben Conlon and Kurt Ahnert voted against the plan and Pam Carbone abstained from voting. Carbone said she felt unprepared to cast a vote because she had missed some meetings for medical reasons.
`I personally feel that the swing zones will have the least drastic impact and take into consideration what the majority of this community wants to have happen,` said Normington.
Superintendent Susan Swartz said that with the board’s decision, she will now be able to inform parents of newly registering children which school they will be attending. Swartz also advised the board that they will continue to be accommodating in granting `special permissions` but will be cautious in doing so.
`If we allow two or three kids here and there to attend schools against the swing zones, the less we will accomplish. I caution this is just a partial solution that will get us moving more kids back to our village schools,` said Swartz.“