The school board said it would accept public input and take it into accounts in its work toward reconfiguration.

At Friday’s community outreach meeting, the administration detailed what one public suggestion from a previous meeting would mean.

The district has stated it has a utilization problem in its high schools. With populations down all over the county, the schools house many fewer students than they did in the past.

One possible solution to that problem was to shift students around — adjust the attendance area lines to help even out the number of students in each high school.

There are 1,275 high school students in the district, according to 2022-23 enrollment data provided by the district. While that solution might grow three high schools that were particularly low, it would shrink one that is also far lower than it was in the past.

That option remained on the table going into Monday night’s school board committee meetings.

“We looked at ways that would even out the populations of the high schools — about 300 each,” Superintendent Amy Stewart said.

Sheffield Area High School, with a 9-through-12 population of 134, would need about 165 of Warren Area High School’s 692.

“To make it happen, the boundary line would need to come in very close to Beaty (Warren Middle School),” Stewart said. “It would capture the East Side.”

Beaty is just over a mile from Warren Area High School. It is 11 miles from Sheffield Area Middle High School.

Almost 50 more students would have to leave the central attendance area to put Eisenhower High School at 300.

“In order to get the north, you would need to pull the boundary line to about Follett Run Road, for everything that is west of Conewango Creek,” Stewart said.

The closest students live just over two miles from Warren High and a little over nine from Eisenhower.

Adding 100 to Youngsville High School, would take switching Starbrick and Pleasant Township.

“There’s not a lot of populated area in the middle,” Stewart said.

The driving distance change is somewhat less than for the other two schools. Those students travel from about three to six miles to get to Warren and would go 6 to 11 to Youngsville.

Moving those students would be contrary to numerous public comments made so far during the reconfiguration process.

Many people have said that one of the justifications for not closing schools should be to keep students together with classmates they have gone to school with for 10 years or more.

Closing Sheffield Area High School, for example, would result in the entire cohort of Sheffield students going to the same place.

Adjusting boundary lines would send more than half of the students who have attended Warren schools together off in three different directions.