Report recommends keeping optional attendance zone in Great Neck

Janelle Clausen
Stephen Lando, the assistant superintendent for secondary education, made a case to the board to retain its optional attendance zone on Wednesday night. (Photo by Janelle Clausen)
Stephen Lando, the assistant superintendent for secondary education, made a case to the board to retain its optional attendance zone on Wednesday night. (Photo by Janelle Clausen)

The Great Neck Board of Education should retain its optional attendance zone in between the North and South halves of the school district to avoid imbalances between the schools but limit it to incoming middle schoolers, a report presented at a Wednesday night board meeting suggests.

The Great Neck Public School district first implemented an optional attendance zone in between the northern and southern half of the district almost a decade ago.

This allowed parents with children in E.M. Baker Elementary School and Saddle Rock Elementary School that were zoned in the South High zone to choose to send a child to a northern or southern school.

Administrators said that this was done to make sure each school had a student population they could handle, as well avoid overcrowding.

“We were about to go off the road with no intention to do so,” said Stephen Lando, the assistant superintendent of secondary education, noting that North and South High School were projected to have vastly different populations if nothing was done.

Right now the population of North High School is 1,133, while South High School’s population is 1,223.

Donald Ashkenase, who has served on the school board for more than 30 years, described the initial decision to create the special zone as “one of the most meaningful votes we’ve ever took” as a board.

According to this year’s report, which projected student populations over the next five years, eliminating the zone would lead to severe imbalances by the 2022-23 school year. North High School’s student count would decrease from 1,133 to 797, it said, while South High School’s population would balloon from 1,223 to 1,761.

Tweaking the zone to only allow optional attendance for fifth graders would keep things balanced, the report suggests. North High School’s population would rise from 1,133 to 1,217 in five years, the report projects, while South High School’s population would be 1,341 versus its current 1,223.

North and South Middle School would meanwhile have relatively equal enrollment throughout the next five years.

Lando noted that the change is only slight and that parents could still make an appeal for their student to go to a different school.

“It really has created a wonderful balance, but it is something that has to be monitored constantly,” Board President Barbara Berkowitz said, noting that they get updates every month.

No action was taken at the meeting regarding the optional zone.

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