Cyndi Loza

In an effort to ease overcrowding, south Reno’s Brown Elementary School will switch to a multi-track year-round schedule in July.

“I think it’s going to be a stressful year — the first year — but it’s only going to get better from there,” said parent Gina Beeg, 43, of Reno. “Everyone will adapt and adjust.”

The year-round system divides students into tracks: yellow, green, red and blue. Each color represents a different school schedule that gives students different times off throughout the year.

Yellow, red and blue tracks will begin on July 7.

“Since (the school district) didn’t have the funds for a new school, multitrack was the only option the district had,” said principal Jacques Maye, who added that Brown exceeded 10 percent of the school’s total capacity.

In the past, the school district only has built new schools in areas where all neighboring schools are on a multitrack schedule, said Lisa Noonan, superintendent of elementary education.

But switching to a multitrack year-round schedule increases the school’s capacity by about 33 percent.

“It slows down the speed at which we need to build new schools,” Noonan said.

For every three schools that switch to multitrack, one new school does not need to be built.

“That’s one thing that the taxpayers like,” Noonan said. “Our feedback has been: ‘OK, now you’re really listening (and) you’re maximizing the use of that facility.’”

It is school district policy for an elementary school to switch to a multitrack, 12-month calendar at the beginning of an upcoming school year when the population of that school exceeds 10 percent of the school’s total capacity and its projected capacity will be more than

115 percent at the beginning of the next school year.

Like other parents, Beeg said switching her children to a multitrack schedule concerned her. She said she has two students in Brown and a teenager attending a high school on a traditional schedule.

“Having your routine shaken up is unnerving,” Beeg said. “But once you know that that’s how things are going to be, you adjust to it. And we had no choice but to adjust.”

Brown secretary Vicki Vradenburg said she co-owns a nearby private children’s camp, “The Kids Zone,” which she hopes will help parents ease into multitrack. She said while students are off-track they can be taken on field trips during the day.

“We want to keep it affordable because we’re doing it for our parents,” said Vradenburg. The cost of their services will be about $150 a week.

Kindergarten registration for Brown’s new multitrack system begins at 9 a.m. on May 5. New students in grades first through sixth can register anytime after May 5.