It’s been a semester since the implementation of a reconfiguration model that sees Sheffield students bussed to Warren Area High School each day for some core classes.

Is it too soon to assess the effectiveness of the change? Yes.

Are district officials pleased with how the change has worked so far? Absolutely.

The outcome of months of debate on school reconfiguration where closing Sheffield and Youngsville high schools was on the table, the board selected a hybrid option of sorts.

High school students who attend Sheffield Area Middle School take their math, English language arts, and science core classes at Warren Area High School. They are transported back to Sheffield to finish their days.

Because they will spend more than 50 percent of the school day at Sheffield, they will officially be Sheffield Area High School students.

“We’re happy with how the plan could be executed,” WCSD Superintendent Amy Stewart told the Times Observer this week. “We’re keeping kids at the center of that conversation.”

That doesn’t mean, though, that there haven’t been challenges.

“It’s going quite well for most kids,” Stewart said. “Not all kids have transitioned with the same ease.”

Her observation has been that “when you go into a classroom” of both Warren and Sheffield students “other than attire, (you see) kids smiling and interacting.”

The rancor inherent to the debate surrounding the decision was bound to spill over to the affected students.

“There is an awful lot of pressure for some of those kids in both directions, a lot of strong feelings,” she said. “We keep focusing on doing the very best that we can for kids.”

Sterwart stressed that she’s “110 percent confident and pleased” with everything that the staff at Warren High have done “to make sure those kids have what they need, that they are talked to, that problems are addressed, (to) alleviate any barriers to them having success.”

The ebbs and flow of a school year have required some nimble thinking.

“The latest was the two-hour delay day,” she said. “How are we going to handle that? We are going to advocate on behalf of that educational experience every time.”

So instead of students missing first and second period classes outright, they pivoted to an abbreviated version of a regular day which, she said, is how some other schools handle delays.

Sheffield students also stayed and ate lunch that day in Warren.

“We gave them a place where they could eat as Sheffield if they did not want to be in the main lunch room,” Stewart said. “We had kids that chose both.”

“We’re trying things for the first time,” she said.

Some Sheffield students have decided to transfer to Warren full-time.

Stewart said they’re “monitoring grades’ very closely, “making sure kids were in the right classes.”

She said that some Sheffield students didn’t have the prerequisite courses needed to be successful in some upper level courses. As a result of taking those prerequisites, more options will be at their fingertips next year.

Assessing educational growth in a holistic way takes time. It’s a big picture proposition.

“I think we need to give it a little bit of time,” she said. “Kids rise to the occasion most of the time when given some push.”

She said it may take a couple years to be able to accurately measure the growth the change facilitates.

“I completely understand how the seniors felt about it,” Stewart acknowledged. “It’s difficult for the senior class. We do see them having positive experiences.”