The “big reveal,” as the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District superintendent called it, came before Tuesday night’s school board session on redistricting; on Monday, the district announced that it would not be needed in the 2015-2016 school year.

The absence of an imminent threat might help explain the sparse attendance for what could have been a hot-button issue. Subtracting administrators and committee members from the audience left fewer than a handful of attendees.

But the district is still headed for overcrowding at Pocopson Elementary — just not immediately. Concerned about rising enrollment trends, the school board hired a firm two months ago to study population growth and evaluate a potential need for redistricting.

On Tuesday night, the board heard from Kristen and Vern McKissick of McKissick Associates about some of the methodology and numbers they compiled. Many of the documents they referenced are available online at https://docs.google.com/folderview?pli=1&id=0B82UgPjD25Oab2xXajg0aXdMSWc&tid=0B82UgPjD25OaUFg3dzJQZ3g3Um8.

Kristen McKissick said Pocopson’s enrollment is predicted to peak in the 2018-19 school year, ranging from as few as 665 students to as many as 742. She said the growth trend likely won’t continue beyond that because development has driven the enrollment increases and the district is running out of developable space.

She said Pennsbury Township just eliminated one possible influx of students by purchasing three parcels totaling 23 acres near the township building. She said the district’s largest remaining development area lies in Chadds Ford Township, which could see the addition of more than 100 townhomes.

McKissick said the report contains a list of remaining tracts that bear watching. Superintendent John C. Sanville said the district would continue to monitor the numbers. “We need to identify the trigger points for future action,” he said. “It’s best to have the plan in place ahead of time.”

Sanville described Pocopson Elementary as “being on the cusp” of needing another classroom as soon as next year, and he said administrators have been working on a variety of accommodations that would be discussed at the work session in January.

In response to a parent’s request for a place to make suggestions, Dave Listman, the district’s communications coordinator, said he would tweak the redistricting website so that residents can submit ideas.

Sanville said that the district remains committed to four K-5 elementary schools, with each school providing the same quality education for its students and maintaining class size of 23 students in kindergarten through second-grade and 26 students in third through fifth. Currently, only one class at Hillendale Elementary exceeds those guidelines by one: a 24-student second-grade class.

Contrary to popular opinion, class size doesn’t dictate redistricting, Sanville said. It stems from the number of classrooms and the building’s ability to handle the student population. In the future, one option might be what Board member Victor E. Dupuis termed “redistricting raw land.”

Sanville explained that if a development is pending on the Unionville-Pocopson border, the district could redraw a boundary to include that development. In that scenario, the new property owners would know “what they’ve signed on for” while eliminating the need for students to change schools.

Board members Robert Sage and Steve Simonson both expressed concern about the reliability of the projected numbers. “What’s the possibility we’re making the wrong decision?” Sage asked, prompting Board member Keith Knauss to ask Sanville how he would “pull a rabbit out of the hat.”

After joking that he would “dust off the resume and go elsewhere,” Sanville said the district typically receives realistic numbers by March of the preceding year, allowing time to make changes.

Board member Jeff Hellrung noted that the district adheres to guidelines on class size. “We don’t have to,” he said, suggesting that the district needs to remain flexible. He said another possible way to alleviate overcrowding is to allow “volunteer moves” to another school. “It’s been a topic that comes up,” he said.

After the meeting, Sanville said the district plans to be proactive, and he encouraged residents to attend the January meeting.

He said the job of maintaining balance at the elementary schools is made easier by the fact that each one has received top rankings by organizations ranging from the federal government to schooldigger.com. “We’re very, very lucky that we have four high-performance elementary schools,” he said.

 

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