JOB FAIR SATURDAY!
The City School District of Albany Board of Education moved closer to making a final decision about a new middle school feeder pattern Thursday night, beginning to focus in on two potential options among the eight proposed scenarios.
All seven board members included scenarios 25828b and 67759c among their top three selections, and established consensus that those two options will be the focus of their work over the next week.
- Watch the video of Thursday's meeting
- Download the presentation from Thursday's meeting
Emphasizing the urgent need for the district to continue moving toward equity for all students through critical long-range planning decisions such as middle school enrollment patterns, the board will continue to review input from the community over the next week. The board is scheduled to meet Thursday, March 17 and expects to make a final decision on the new enrollment pattern for next school year.
The board and district continue to welcome community input through a variety of channels:
- The district’s feeder survey remains open until Friday at 5 p.m. As of the start of Thursday’s meeting, 622 people had completed the survey.
- You can visit our Addressing the Board page for a variety of ways to share comments with the board.
- Use our online Feedback form.
The new feeder pattern would be phased-in over three years, with this year’s fifth-graders moving up to sixth grade in alignment with the new pattern next fall. Students currently in grades 6-7 would remain in their current middle schools until moving on to high school.
You can visit our Feeder Enrollment Committee page to read more about this work.
Superintendent Kaweeda G. Adams indicated Thursday that the district is prepared to support sibling preference with any new feeder pattern, and open enrollment also may be an option depending on space availability, and facilities and staffing considerations.
While board members noted that none of the eight proposed scenarios has been ruled out, the board’s focus on scenarios 25828b and 67759c aligns with the current feedback from families through the district’s ongoing survey. As of Thursday, those are the only two scenarios that had more survey respondents choosing “fits well” than “fits poorly.”
Click here to review the survey results as of 5 p.m. Thursdsay.
Five of the eight scenarios propose enrolling students from New Scotland Elementary School at North Albany Middle School. The board’s discussion Thursday focused on the likelihood of increased transportation expenses and operational challenges with those scenarios.
The board members also agreed that all eight proposed scenarios represent significant improvements from the district’s current middle school alignment. However, they noted that scenarios 25828b and 67759c seem to provide the most academic equity and balance of resources among the middle schools.
