How does a school district with hundreds of thousands of students go from having 36 overcrowded schools to none at all?

If you're the Broward school system, you change the definition of crowded.

Next week, School Board members will ask representatives from cities and the county to measure school enrollment as a regional average -- not a school-by-school basis.

The plan, first proposed in August, would split the countywide district into eight regions -- solely for crowding measurement purposes -- and help Broward avoid massive, unpopular school attendance boundary moves. If approved, the number of overcrowded schools, for all intents and purposes, shrinks to none.

Otherwise, Broward would have an estimated 36 elementary, middle and high schools exceeding 110 percent of their capacity by the 2013-14.

The district would be forced to shuffle thousands of students out of those schools and into adjacent ones -- which could also be full. Additional students would then have to be pushed out of those adjacent schools, creating a domino effect. The state has ruled that Broward has too many empty seats to justify building new classrooms.

Board members warned at a meeting Monday that loosening how crowding is measured would not solve the district's enrollment imbalance, with most over-enrolled schools in western Broward and most underenrolled ones in the east.

``I don't want us to say this is the panacea,'' Stephanie Kraft said at the meeting.

Monday's meeting was hastily called last week after board members said they were confused about what they would be asking municipalities next week.

BOUNDARY ISSUES

The measurement change, which a majority of cities and the county would have to approve, will not prevent all boundary moves, Superintendent Jim Notter warned.

And overcrowded schools -- particularly several middle and high schools in southwest Broward -- would still be packed.

``Is it a game that we're playing with shifting to regions?'' board member Bob Parks asked. ``You can shift all the lines you want, but that school's still over-enrolled.''

He acknowledged that boundary moves are politically explosive -- ``It's the worst thing in the world,'' Parks said -- but questioned the timing of changing how crowding is measured.

``Why don't we say the truth: We don't want to make a boundary change this year,'' he said.

In recent weeks, the board has been facing pressure from parents about a proposed boundary switch that would move about 170 incoming sixth- and seventh-graders from Pioneer Middle in Cooper City to Pines Middle or Driftwood Middle in Hollywood.

Under either proposal, to make room for Pioneer students, another 170 kids who now go to Pines or about 185 who attend Driftwood would be transferred to Apollo Middle, also in Hollywood.

Pioneer, Pines, Driftwood and Apollo all received an A grade from the state last school year.

A couple of Cooper City elected officials and about 20 parents, many wearing red ``No Boundary Change in Broward'' T-shirts, attended Monday's meeting.

Board members said changing the crowding measure is not about protecting Pioneer.

``It isn't about one school,'' Maureen Dinnen said. ``It's about a whole bunch of schools. I don't know if you can disrupt seven or eight or 10 communities.''

Added board chairwoman Jennifer Gottlieb: ``It's more about keeping the students in our school system as opposed to pushing them out.''

Notter is scheduled to make a recommendation on the Pioneer switch next week. The board signaled last week that it might delay the change for a year to give the school district and municipalities time to loosen the crowding measure.

PORTABLES

The change would also let the district count more portable classrooms as part of a school's permanent capacity.

The move to change how it measures crowding would not be unique to Broward. Other large Florida school districts also measure crowding as a regional average or count portables, said board member Robin Bartleman.

When the Broward district last updated its contract with municipalities -- known as an interlocal agreement, or ILA -- all sides agreed not to include all portables and to measure crowding on a school-by-school basis.

That tighter measure meant more developers had to pay fees for the impact new housing would have on schools.

But now that building has frozen, municipalities and the school district can alter the agreement to keep more children in schools close to home, board members agreed.

``I don't look at it as playing with numbers,'' Bartleman said. ``Next year, if we do not amend this. . .you're moving 14,000 children.''