Over the last few months many concerned parents have attended school board meetings and spoken with district administration about the overcrowding at Gardiners Avenue and Summit Lane Elementary Schools. In response to these concerns, and in acknowledgment of the problem, at the December Board of Education meeting, Superintendent of the Levittown School District, Dr. Herman Sirois, announced his intention of implementing a plan that would help to alleviate the overcrowding in these two schools.

During the Public Be Heard session of the November and December school board meetings many parents expressed their displeasure with lack of room at Summit Land and Gardiners Avenue Schools. In November some parents mentioned that the DLC classes should be moved from Summit Lane to the middle school, which would not only put those students with their own age group but would free up space at Summit. A Summit parent asked the board to "Try to design a viable solution to the overcrowding at Summit Lane." She noted that the ESL population at Summit has grown tremendously and that needed to be taken into consideration when looking at the numbers in the classrooms. One Gardiners parent stated, "Our school needs your help now. We need space. We are busting out at all ends." Another parent expressed frustration that there wasn't money left in the bond to build the number of classrooms originally proposed.

In response to questions about the money in the bond, Sirois told residents that the cost of building classrooms has nearly doubled since the bond was first proposed so the district could not afford to build the number of classrooms they had planned to and that the district now had to re-evaluate their plans.

At the December meeting Sirois outlined a plan which he feels will help alleviate some of the concerns about space in the schools. Under this new plan, two special education classes would be moved from Summit Lane to Wisdom Lane Middle School. These two developmentally delayed classes are age appropriate for the middle school rather than an elementary school, noted Sirois. At the same time, two elementary school aged special education classes would be moved from Gardiners Avenue School to Summit Lane School. This will provide two more classrooms at Gardiners. By this spring the district expects the construction of two additional classrooms at Summit Lane to be completed, therefore also providing extra space at that site. "The two classrooms that we're building onto Summit Lane will take care of any overcrowding that there is," said Sirois in an interview this week.

While admitting that overcrowding in the schools has been an issue, Sirois noted that moving the special education classes from Summit to Wisdom is something that should have been done anyway because those children should be in more age appropriate settings. "That's something that we've had an eye on doing for a long time and it's finally coming to fruition," said the superintendent.

Looking ahead to the expected population growth at the middle and high schools in the coming years, Sirois spoke to the board about an idea of putting additional money into the budget each year to build onto the secondary schools. Sirois stated, "Within three to four years, we project that Salk Middle School will have a shortage of classrooms, I believe the shortage is six classrooms and shortly after that MacArthur High School will have a shortage of six classrooms."

Sirois explained that by the addition of nine classrooms, through the bond, at Wisdom and freeing up more classrooms through scheduling efficiencies that school would be okay during the population bulge, barring any changes in enrollments. At worst, according to Sirois, Division Avenue High School will be short one classroom by 2004. "If it's only one classroom short and the enrollment bulge, by then, is projected to be a short duration, it is unlikely we would do any building to accommodate that," said Sirois. "If, however, the enrollment increase is either larger than we project now or if it turns out the enrollment bulge will last more years, under those conditions would consider recommending building an addition onto Division Avenue High School."

Salk and MacArthur, according to Sirois, are the buildings that clearly will need space in the coming years. By building $750,000 a year into the budget over the next several years, Sirois believes that the district will be able to build four additional classrooms onto each of those schools over a three-year period. By converting old industrial arts rooms into classrooms and making some scheduling efficiencies Sirois believes he can free up enough space in those schools to make up for the additional rooms that are needed. He said that for an activity period multiple groups or clubs may be able to meet in a larger area such as an auditorium or cafeteria, which would clear up one or two classrooms for academic classes.

At the time of the bond the district did not plan for these additional classrooms at the middle and high school, because, according to Sirois, their projections at that time did not indicate a need for them. "Our projections five years ago indicated that we would not need anything more than the 10 classrooms that we built at Wisdom Lane. So these reflect our most recent projections and the increase in enrollment that we've been experience," said Sirois. He noted that two things occurred which have resulted in an increased enrollment. The first thing was that the number of students attending private or parochial school after either fifth or eighth grade has been less than projected, which represents approximately one classroom per building. The second reason why the enrollment has increased, according to the superintendent, is that more students have moved into the district than the district had projected. "There was no real way of knowing that, the projections are based on recent records, recent experiencing," said Sirois.

Originally the district had intended on changing the attendance zones so more students would be attending Wisdom Lane and Division, taking some of the pressure off Salk and MacArthur but last year many residents strongly objected to that plan and the board chose not to follow through with that. Now, by moving the special education students to Wisdom from Summit and moving students from Gardiners to Summit, the extra space in Wisdom is filled up and some of the overcrowding issues in the elementary schools have been addressed. Although this plan is definite and will take place in the fall, the plan to build upon Salk and MacArthur is dependent upon the money being put into the budget each year and those budgets being passed.