Committee Report Includes Highmeadow Expansion Option

, ' only school of choice, could be making room for fifth graders as early as next year, and sixth graders by the 2012-2013 school year. The school is now a kindergarten through the fourth grade building.

The expansion is one of the options in a report by the Farmington Public Schools Choice Options Committee, which was established in April 2010 to study schools of choice, enrichment programs and magnet schools within the district. The committee will present the report to the Board of Education Tuesday night.

The report is based in part on a community survey conducted in January.

The survey results showed a high level of interest in exploring a kindergarten-sixth grade configuration at Highmeadow and at . Respondents were also interested in ramping up science, technology, engineering and math programs throughout the district, and developing a Gifted & Talented program in the district’s elementary and middle schools.

The committee is presenting three options Tuesday.

Option 1 would expand Highmeadow to a K-5 school next year and a K-6 school the following year. That would enable the school to operate at full capacity.

Further, Beechview Elementary and schools would each include one section of fifth graders next year and one section of sixth graders the following year, allowing that school to also be used to its full capacity, and alleviate crowding at the district’s two upper elementary schools. Enrichment programs, similar to those offered currently at Highmeadow, would be expanded to those two schools.

According to the report, while this configuration would make Beechview and Hillside parents happy, it won’t make everyone happy. The expansion would not allow all Beechview and Hillside students to continue at those schools. Some would have to proceed to one of the district’s upper elementary schools.

Option 2 also recommends the expansion for Highmeadow to include fifth and sixth graders, but limits the expansions to Beechview and Hillside to full fifth and sixth-grade expansions. However, that would mean physical expansion of the facilities, and might require the use of modular classrooms.

Option 3 would hold off on any expansion of any elementary schools until the district could expand multiple elementary schools. It also recommends exploring a new educational foundation, which could collect contributions from community organizations and businesses to support choice options and enrichment programs.

Also on the agenda, the Board will consider issuing requests for proposals (RFPs) that would potentially privatize support services. (Read the story.) Officials will look at the potential savings in outsourcing non-instructional information technology services as well.