Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton Deb Thompson, Strategy Solutions president, speaks during Wednesday's Warren County School District public meeting on school reconfiguration.

At the end of a three-hour public meeting Wednesday night, the school board wasn’t ready to start eliminating options.

It was a satisfactory ending for many of the more than 100 people who attended.

Monday’s meeting was intended to help the board winnow down a list of ideas for reconfiguration – particularly at the high school level – to a handful of preferred options.

When Strategy Solutions President Deb Thompson asked the board to start rating options using criteria developed during the meeting to prioritize the options, board members said they were not ready.

“What we’re attempting to do tonight… we want to take this list of 12 or 15 and pare it down to a more manageable number that some real analysis can be put around,” Thompson said. “We’re talking about criteria that we can use to evaluate that longer list to create that shorter list.”

“I don’t know how comfortable I feel taking any of the options off right now,” Board President Paul Mangione said.

“I’m not anywhere near any position to add those criteria to any of those,” Board Member Joe Colosimo said. “I’ve got 1,000 questions on these before I could possibly vote on any criteria.”

“We told the community there weren’t any options and here we have options,” Board Member Jeff Dougherty said. “I’m not in a position to vote.”

“I don’t have enough information to vote on any of these,” Board Member Kevin Lindvay said.

He added that he didn’t know how long it might take to be ready, but “we owe it to everyone sooner than later.”

The board meets on Monday.

Superintendent Amy Stewart suggested that the options and criteria be sent to the board members before that meeting.

“Think about what you do want from all of the options to evaluate them with fidelity,” Stewart said.