In another step toward potential reconfiguration, the Beverly Hills Unified School District will focus on a few possible options that had been discussed earlier this year.

At their April 10 meeting, school board members said they will work with district staff in the coming months to answer questions they posed earlier this year during a series of meetings to consider reconfiguring the district’s four K-8 schools. They also backed off a previously discussed idea of forming another committee to consider the options.

District Superintendent Michael Bregy and a 22-member Future Focused Schools Team of local stakeholders both recommended closing one of the K-8 schools, followed by a transition to one 6-8 middle school and three K-5 schools.

Each of those options will be considered in the coming months. Board members said they want to evaluate how to reconfigure with construction ongoing, along with the potential litigation the district would be exposed to.

“We can no longer postpone an orderly decision-making process,” school board member Mel Spitz said.

Reconfiguration has been discussed as a way to end the district’s trend of passing budgets with projected deficits and to improve programming. Many parents voiced their opposition to changing the K-8 model, but a number of teachers and students said they supported making a change.

“There was a divide on this board,” school board member Howard Goldstein said. “We couldn’t get three of us, and what you really want in this community, when it’s something that important, five of us [to] agree on it. It’s that important.”

A shrinking enrollment at the middle school and high school levels have also factored in to the district’s exploration of other configurations.

“When we had enough scheduling and students to actually give students the opportunities for electives, it worked very, very well,” Goldstein said. “I don’t think the K-8 model is the problem. I think [it’s] the fact that we don’t have enough students to operate within that model currently.”

Last month, the board heard the results of a curriculum audit that highlighted some of the concerns they have about the district’s academics. “There were similarities across schools and at each school there were pockets of excellence,” according to a presentation by education consulting firm Generation Ready at the Board of Education’s March 27 meeting. “There was, however, a lack of coherence within schools and across the district in terms of the teaching, assessment and curriculum.”

In March, school board members had discussed forming another team to answer questions that had been raised the last time around. It would work with district staff, as the Future Focused Schools Team did, before reporting back to the board.

“You can’t talk in theory when you don’t have the basic fundamental facts,” school board President Lisa Korbatov said. “The construction team should be in on every phase of this, as should your attorneys.”

Korbatov has also cited district-wide construction currently underway, and planned over the next several years, as a potential obstacle to reconfiguration. A $385 million bond measure will be on the ballot in Beverly Hills this June for additional work. A new committee, she said, would be able to evaluate reconfiguration options objectively.

“This is such a big move, you have to have all hands on deck,” she said.

But others said the school board members themselves should more carefully consider how to undertake reconfiguration while construction continues, and weigh the potential for litigation.

“Decisions need to be made, they don’t need to be kicked around anymore,” school board member Noah Margo said, adding that there is still a list of logistical questions to be answered.

“The committee is not going to make this decision,” he added later. “We are. So why are we putting something in between us and the people who have the answers? You’re saying the committee is going to go to staff to get the answers, [but] I’m asking staff myself. I don’t need somebody to ask for me.”

Beverly Hills voters will elect two new school board members in this November’s election, with Korbatov and Goldstein stepping down at the end of their current terms. Candidates’ positions on reconfiguration will likely be one of the top issues.