The Beverly Hills Unified School District will soon announce a timeline for implementing the steps administrators will take to reconfigure its four K-8 schools beginning next school year.

The school board voted one month ago to move all students in grades 6-8 to a consolidated middle school at Beverly Vista, with two K-5 schools at Horace Mann and Hawthorne. El Rodeo will close at the end of this school year for two years of construction.

“We’re working on a timeline to move forward so that we can be more specific about the things we’re going to be doing and when we’re doing them and why we’re doing them,” Superintendent Michael Bregy said during a Nov. 26 Board of Education meeting. “Just a very comprehensive timeline. And I think the public and our staff is waiting for that. We are going to be working on that and there’s a lot of sensitive and emotional things that are going to be happening in the next several months.”

District administration has cited declining enrollment and a resulting overstaffing of teachers as one of the main factors limiting academic offerings, particularly in the middle school grade levels. The district is also in the process of forming transition committees for all four K-8 schools. Each one will have an administrator serving as its chair.

Under the new configuration, K-5 students at El Rodeo will move to Hawthorne; K-5 students at Beverly Vista will move to Horace Mann. All 6-8 grade students will move to Beverly Vista.

The reconfiguration plan was the culmination of nearly two years of discussion. In January 2017, school board member Noah Margo raised the possibility of closing a school to address the district’s projected budget deficits and improve programming. The conversation continued after Bregy joined the district one month later.

Last school year, the district assembled a 22-member Future Focused Schools Team to evaluate the reconfiguration possibilities. Tristen Walker-Shuman, who will be sworn in as one of two new school board members next month, was part of the team’s near unanimous vote last winter to recommend transitioning to three K-5 schools and one middle school. Bregy and district administration also recommended a consolidated middle school.

But the board did not vote on reconfiguration following those recommendations with questions lingering over how it would accommodate reconfiguration with ongoing construction at multiple school sites. The passage of Measure BH, a $385 million construction bond measure approved by Beverly Hills voters in June, gave the district a clearer picture of its options.

The long-term future of the K-5, 6-8 configuration will be evaluated when El Rodeo is close to reopening. It could become a third K-5 school, or part of another configuration the board wants to consider.

“It is a large change for our school district, and change to some people – it may be small to one person but really large to another, and we’ve had a lot of people that have a lot of longevity in our school district, and just want to keep in mind that even what someone might think is a small change could be monumental for some of our staff,” Bregy said. “I know that they’re waiting anxiously for those next steps and we will be putting out a timeline very shortly.”