MANCHESTER – As a candidate for mayor, Ted Gatsas often said he would like to redraw the lines that determine where each child in Manchester goes to school.

As it turns out, that's not all he has in mind.

Gatsas, now mayor-elect, has spread the word among city and school district officials that he is interested in a dramatic overhaul of Manchester's school system. His plan would bump ninth-graders down to the middle schools, and bump sixth-graders down to the elementary schools.

GATSAS

Elementary and middle schools would be redistricted, meaning students could be shifted among schools based on redrawn neighborhood districts, but not so for high schools.

Gatsas also hopes to negotiate a deal with Hooksett that would funnel all of the town's high schoolers to Manchester High School West.

"There's a lot of moving parts," said school board member Art Beaudry of the plan, "and I literally mean moving, because there'll be kids moving all over the place to accomplish this."

Gatsas said his idea would ease the crowding at Central and Memorial high schools.

School board members, expressing some interest in the concept, said the rejiggering of grades might also be a way to address some of their concerns about the city's middle schools, which, according to some members, are not effectively preparing students for high school.

Others are skeptical. One board member, Mike DeBlasi, said he "would have a hard time" imagining high school as a three-year experience, beginning with 10th grade, as opposed to a four-year experience that begins at grade nine.

There are those, as well, who question the underlying assumption that there are too many students at Memorial and Central high schools. That group includes Memorial principal Arthur Adamakos, who said that, in fact, his school has empty classrooms.

"The high school buildings were built to handle 2,500 kids apiece, and none of them have 2,500 kids," he said. "So the overcrowding doesn't exist."

Gatsas floated his ideas during a series of meetings this month with each of the incoming school board members and aldermen. He said the concept will surely require some analysis, conceding, "I'm not the expert."

He contends it may be possible to put the new system in place by the start of the 2010-2011 school year, though many school board members say they expect a plan of this sort would take some time to study, let alone implement.

"We need to take a look at the numbers," said school board member Joyce Craig, who will join the board of aldermen next year.

►Shift would make city high schools unique in state (4)

The suggestion that Hooksett students could be diverted away from Central and Memorial high schools comes at a sensitive time. Hooksett school board members have recently accused the city of under-funding its schools and have floated the possibility of building a high school of their own.

DeBlasi is worried they just might do it. "All this is doing is putting one more shovel in the ground," he said.

Gatsas said a negotiation with Hooksett would involve some "gives and takes." To that end, he said, there may be a chance to offer Hooksett a seat on the Manchester school board.

Manchester's superintendent of schools, Tom Brennan, said he has started to do some research in anticipation of questions to come. For one thing, he said, he is examining the capacities of each school. He also is combing the country for other school districts that structure their schools the way Gatsas would. As of Thursday, he had not found any.

Gatsas was unable to name any cities with three-year high schools but said many cities are doing away with their middle schools altogether. He said he did not know what, if anything, a changeover would cost.

It was roughly a decade ago that Manchester converted its junior high schools, comprising only seventh and eighth grades, into the three-year middle schools they are today.

Beaudry said he doesn't know how the city's elementary schools could possibly absorb all of Manchester's sixth-graders, claiming that some of the schools are currently "bulging at the seams."

Adamakos, meanwhile, said he doesn't see how the high schools would benefit by dropping ninth-graders to middle school, though he noted he has not spoken with Gatsas about the plan. Memorial High School has 2,100 students, he said, and could handle another 400 without exceeding its capacity.

Where there's crowding, he said, is in the classrooms. "We have fewer teachers, which means there are more kids in a class," he said.