A realignment of grade levels in Burrell School District buildings has offered more opportunities for students this school year.
Students had more clubs, career exploratory classes and leadership prospects because of a district realignment that followed the closure of Stewart Elementary in August 2025. Effective this school year, Bon Air Elementary is a kindergarten-through-fourth-grade building, while the Huston building now houses fifth through eighth graders.
“The transition is going well,” said Travis Welch, principal at Charles A. Huston Middle School. “A lot of that can be attributed to (Superintendent Shannon) Wagner leading the community and staff in our taskforce last school year.
“We had many different perspectives shared and ultimately came up with a schedule that provides more flexibility to meet students’ needs and allow teachers to be involved in passion projects and extracurricular activities.”
Throughout the Pittsburgh region, a number of schools are undergoing, considering, or have recently reconfigured or consolidated district buildings. The reasons for the changes range from student needs and attempts to improve education to finances and declining populations.
New Kensington-Arnold is undergoing a public process to realign its district buildings. Within the past five years, Burrell, Baldwin-Whitehall and Franklin Regional realigned their buildings.
Bethel Park, Shaler Area, Brentwood and Steel Valley are considering realignment or consolidation of buildings.
The Pittsburgh Public Schools are reportedly considering resurrecting a plan that would close nine school buildings and reconfigure more than a dozen others.
“Every district is different with what they’re considering or what they’re realigning, but some of it is space in a building — either too much of it or too little. Some of it is cost or financial considerations — the cost to operate or transport to buildings,” said Linda Hippert, an education professor at Point Park University.
“And I think, first and foremost, every administrator is considering what we know about students — how they learn and how they interact with others.”
‘Outgrown that model of education’
New Kensington-Arnold is considering realignment because its current model — a kindergarten-only building, first and second grades together, a third-through-sixth-grade building and a seventh-through-12th-grade junior-senior high school — is not working, Superintendent Christopher Sefcheck said.
“Historically, our achievement levels started that decline back then,” he said during a school board meeting last week. “When all things point to a catastrophic event, that would be the event.”
The district is leading volunteer committees to look into potential reconfigurations and will present recommendations to the school board’s education committee in April or May.
In August, Bethel Park School District will open a K-5 elementary center, consolidating five elementary schools; and sixth grade students will move to the middle school with seventh and eighth grades.
Equity, education, costs and space led to that decision, district spokesman James Cromie said.
Bethel Park established a website to provide updates on its building reconfiguration, Cromie said. The district held public meetings and communicated through media and district publications to explain the plan.
“At first, those who did not follow the entire line of reasoning that emerged during the self-study and feasibility review were skeptical that consolidation was the best option,” Cromie said. “Once someone took a moment to review the facts and finances, he or she immediately understood the need and the decision.”
Cromie said Bethel Park heard, and understood, a “fair amount of opposition” from families who opposed losing five neighborhood schools.
“These schools have been welcoming little parts of the community and excellent schools for a long time,” Cromie said, “but we have outlived or outgrown that model of education.”
It’s what’s in the classroom
Burrell closed Stewart and realigned Bon Air and Huston because of decreasing enrollment, finances and to better support student needs, officials said. Welch acknowledges there’s no unused space at the realigned buildings like there was in the past.
He said the school’s challenges stem from more people being in the building — from more activity in the front office to congestion in bathrooms, leading to some misuse. However, all of that is manageable, he said.
“It’s been a good year,” Welch said. “I enjoy seeing the younger fifth grade students in our halls. The additional staff has been great to work with and have fit well with the positive culture we are trying to maintain at Huston Middle School.”
There’s no research that proves any certain reconfiguration from kindergarten through eighth grade is the best, said Hippert, the Point Park professor.
“Academically, as well as socially, kids do well in any environment,” Hippert said. “It comes down to what’s happening in the classroom, what’s happening in the school and what the culture is in the building.”
Hippert was Superintendent of the South Fayette Township School District from 1990 to 2009. In 2002, the district underwent a reconfiguration from two buildings, one kindergarten through sixth grade and one seventh through 12th grade, to a K-4 elementary, 5-8 middle and 9-12 high school.
Leading up to that realignment, South Fayette essentially operated a fifth through eighth grade middle school through the two buildings, keeping fifth and sixth grades together at one building, and seventh and eighth grades at the other, Hippert said. A principal shared time between buildings.
“What it comes down to is what people get used to,” Hippert said. “The challenge is often about change — not about the grade level or what the building configuration looks like.”
Communication crucial
Welch said Burrell’s transition is going well because of the district’s efforts to communicate with the community.
Staff members and parents were able to join a volunteer task force that met after school to review and recommend grade realignments and to review building layouts and schedules.
“We had many different perspectives shared and ultimately came up with a schedule that provides more flexibility to meet students’ needs and allows teachers to be involved in passion projects and extracurricular activities,” Welch said.
Huston has more than 30 clubs for students to join this year, Welch said, compared with about 10 last year.
When Jeannette City School District moved its fifth graders in with middle school students about 12 years ago, there was a lot of preparation and communication with parents that went along with that decision.
That process was repeated in the 2017-18 school year, when grades were realigned districtwide, putting kindergarteners through sixth graders in one building and seventh through 12th grades in another. The realignment was the result of a budget crunch that brought teacher furloughs and a close look at student-to-teacher ratios.
Superintendent Matt Jones said that work was crucial so parents could understand the expectations of their children and how the district would handle the age differences.
“It did take a lot of planning and a lot of communication,” he said.
Hippert said districts need to clearly and consistently communicate why they are realigning and what it will do for the community. As South Fayette superintendent, Hippert recalls discussing realignment years in advance. When the buildings were realigned, officials communicated what future plans would entail if the district continued to see population growth, she said.
“The success was getting people on board,” Hippert said. “Parents can be your best advocates if they respect you for communicating and being transparent.
“It didn’t mean no one disagreed, but in this day and age, we have to always talk about fiscal responsibility. Sometimes, reconfiguring buildings and grade levels is necessary.”
Realignments can unify
In 2021, Franklin Regional School District officials undertook a full realignment of their lower grades. They took three kindergarten through fifth grade neighborhood elementaries and consolidated them into a renovated primary school and a brand-new intermediate building. The primary school houses grades K-2, the intermediate 3-5.
“We wanted to start with our elementaries because that’s the foundation of our districts,” Superintendent Gennaro Piraino said. “So we began talking about what we wanted education to look like for our kids — arts opportunities, hands-on types of STEM activities that can meaningfully engage students.”
District officials wanted to ensure students had equal access, which wasn’t possible with two out of three elementary buildings in need of large-scale renovation or repairs.
“We had to look at the cost of renovating three schools, which was very close to the cost of what we ended up doing,” Piraino said. “And while each neighborhood school had its own personality, each also had its limitations. We had an opportunity to build continuity for all of our K-2 and grade 3-5 students.”
Piraino said the elementary realignment has allowed the district to provide more for students.
In engaging with parents, Piraino said, the district also heard a desire for continued contact and mentoring between older and younger students.
“We have intermediate students going to the elementary school, and we have high school students coming down to the intermediate school each day to help out and provide leadership,” he said.
Student equity was also a priority when Baldwin-Whitehall reconfigured its buildings, Superintendent Randal Lutz said.
In 2023-24, the district launched three primary school buildings — one for kindergarten, one for first and second grade, and another for third through fifth grades — in addition to a sixth-through-eighth-grade middle school and a high school for ninth through 12 grades.
The district has realized educational and financial benefits with that model, Lutz said.
“Instructionally, you can make progress at a grade level if all of that grade level is under one roof,” he said. “Financially and instructionally, it did make sense to unify it.”
Lutz said the district has worked through transportation with the reconfiguration and acknowledged students have more transitions to new buildings under the model. But, he said, the current model has increased collaboration among staff and the community and has saved the district money.
“If it makes the district stronger, I’m not sure how you can’t at least explore it,” Lutz said of realignment. “It’s been a challenge, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”