With a Tuesday work session set to hear the results of input and to narrow down reconfiguration options, the school board seemed interested in adding a new option.

At Monday’s regular meeting of the board, members discussed a hybrid option in which students who could not take certain core classes at their home schools would be transported to a central location like Warren County Career Center for a portion of the day.

“I am open to the possibility that there might be another option out there … that we haven’t really had a chance to discuss yet,” board member Arthur Stewart said.

“I consider the Warren County Career Center the most successful school,” board member Joe Colosimo said. “Can we replicate the career center model to improve education in educational goals?”

“We’re not bringing the schools together … we’re bringing the students,” he said. “Why can’t we replicate that mindset to apply to the core classes?”

“I’m not saying, ‘go to the career center,'” Colosimo said. “Just the whole mindset of bringing the kids together. Maybe two of the high school locations that would house this.”

Bringing students together for a portion of the day would be at least a partial win for those who have advocated for maintaining community schools.

Director of Administrative Support Services Gary Weber said the time a student spends at the career center counts as time at their home school for things like athletic participation. Board Member Jeff Dougherty said he would favor the “normalcy” offered by keeping schools open while relieving other issues driving reconfiguration.

“If we can brainstorm an idea that gives them that normalcy and keeps them at their home school… I’m all for it,” he said.

Board members liked the idea of being able to offer programming to all students in the district.

“Perhaps, they come over for core classes, then they can dive into STEM – STEM counts toward their home school,” Zariczny said.

Stewart agreed that providing opportunities at the district’s STEM Academy was a valuable incentive.

“I’m very enthusiastic about your idea,” he said to Colosimo. “I’m interested in giving all students access to STEM, but I’m not interested in paying for it four times over because I don’t think we can afford it.”

He said the district has “given up on” certain advanced ideas because of its ongoing dedication to maintaining high schools.

“If there’s some avenue that we could go down that solves a multitude of dilemmas, but allows the community to see the benefit back at the home schools…” Zariczny said.

“I’m intrigued,” Stewart said. “Maybe that’s a solution that allows us to have the cake and eat it too. We can still have a whole slate of electives and we’re not wasting the taxpayers’ money.”

That discussion took place as the board members looked at an agenda item pertaining to class sizes below or near their established bottom limit of 12.

Some of the classes on the list included an at-risk classification or were for specific special education areas and must be offered regardless of the number of students enrolled.

“There are many classes in this list that are special ed offerings or absolute need … we really have no choice,” board member Donna Zariczny said.

But, for the others, the board could opt not to offer them. The number of classes near the limit came as a surprise to board members.

“When COVID hit, it disrupted things. It’s been several years since we’ve seen this report,” Zariczny said. “I was shocked by the number of classes that are less than 12 across the board.”

“Some of these classes are normal classes that we need to be offering for our students … English 12 college prep, English 12…” she said. “Physics… that’s a higher-level basic class that should be available in every school.”

“We have let our electives get too diminished – both in terms of quantity and to whom they are available,” Stewart said. “We have to look at at least holding the line on electives if not reversing the trend.”

Zariczny pointed out the numbers for senior band — nine at Eisenhower, one at Sheffield, and 11 at both Warren and Youngsville.

“Imagine what you could do with 20 students instead of 1, 9, and 11,” she said.