The Catholic Church is rolling out the first phase of its major reorganization of New York parish elementary schools — an overhaul that will create small districts and include sharing of some educators, administrators, and governing boards.

The superintendent of Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of New York, Catherine Hickey told The New York Sun that three pilot districts — one in the city and two upstate — could be up and running this month. More districts would be inaugurated by September, she said.

About five churches and three nearby parish schools will make up a district, or “inter-parochial educational community.” These clusters will be managed by a governing board composed of pastors, school principals, and up to 20 parish lay leaders.

Parents will be able to pay inparish tuition if they send their children to any of the schools within their assigned district, Mrs. Hickey said.

The archdiocese plans to hire a business manager for each school community, thereby relieving pastors and principals of some of their accounting and administrative duties, Mrs. Hickey said in an interview. In addition, she said executive boards would be composed of lay leaders with a wide range of professional expertise, adding: “We need the lawyer, the accountant, the engineer, and the electrician.”

Mrs. Hickey would not release the locations of the three districts in phase one, but said they represent the geographic diversity of the archdiocese, which comprises Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx, in addition to seven suburban and upstate counties. There are more than 400 parishes and 218 non-secondary parish schools under the auspices of the archdiocese. The archdiocese also runs about a dozen elementary schools that are not parish-affiliated.

When the new system is implemented, nearly every diocesan parish would bear responsibility for their local Catholic schools.

“This will really help spread out the financial burden” among multiple parishes, the principal of the Epiphany School in Manhattan, James Hayes, said of the cluster model. He added that it could also prove to be a money-saver, as schools districts share master teachers, and specialists such as music and arts educators, in addition to development and marketing staffs. Mr. Hayes said Epiphany — the East 22nd Street elementary school that serves students living in Gramercy Park, Midtown East, and on the Upper East Side — would likely become part of an educational community in September 2008.

Mrs. Hickey said the reorganization comes in response to a 2005 push by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to reiterate its commitment to sustaining and strengthening the nation’s Catholic schools. “We want to involve more people in looking at how schools can be administered effectively and funded effectively,” an assistant secretary for parental advocacy for the Bishops Conference, Marie Powell, said. “Rather than just go parish by parish, the thrust was to do it more comprehensively and more collaboratively.”

Heeding the call, six mid-Atlantic dioceses recently created a structure enabling them to work together on issues such as fundraising, advertising, and educator training, Ms. Powell said.

Last fall, the Diocese of Brooklyn, comprising Brooklyn and Queens, embarked on its own pilot cluster model, bringing together three Canarsie schools under a single advisory board. The schools maintained separate campuses but adopted a single name, Our Lady of Trust School. Mrs. Hickey said there are no plans to rename any of the parochial schools in the Archdiocese of New York.