Columbia Public Schools to seek public comment on attendance area proposals
Comment opens later this month.
The public can comment online starting Dec. 20 on proposed attendance
area boundary changes developed for Gentry and Jefferson middle schools
and a new elementary school in east Columbia.
Separate committees made up of teachers, school officials, parents and
community members came up with tentative versions of the proposals
Thursday: one scenario for the elementary school and two for the middle
schools.
The middle school adjustment is designed to relieve crowding at Gentry
Middle School.
Enrollment in late September was 868, but the school’s capacity, includ-
ing 13 classroom trailers, is 871.
The adjustments will affect Gentry and Jefferson, which are feeder
schools for Rock Bridge High School. Jefferson had 597 students in late
September. Officials have said 659 was the building’s capacity, but
Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Peter Stiepleman said after
reviewing the building and classroom space with the architect,
enrollment there can go as high as 725.
“We can make 725 work,” he said. “Enrollments and classroom spaces
at secondary” schools “are different than elementary” schools.
Committee member Kim Fallis, whose daughter is an eighth-grader at
Gentry, said the committee members tried to keep the middle school
students with their peers from elementary schools. She said the comm-
ittee also did not want to create a crowding problem at Jefferson.
“The ultimate goal is to resolve the crowding problem for Gentry
until a new middle school can be built,” Fallis said.
That’s a few years out, at the earliest. Voters in April approved a
bond issue that includes money to buy land and design a new middle
school in south Columbia. A bond issue to build the school is two years
away, with construction two years after that, if voters were to approve it.
An elementary committee worked out a tentative scenario for the
new elementary school in the Vineyards subdivision in east Columbia.
When it opens in August, the school will replace Cedar Ridge Elemen-
tary School.The committee made adjustments to the attendance
areas for Cedar Ridge, Benton, Lee Expressive Arts, New Haven, Rock
Bridge and Shepard Boulevard elementary schools. Both committees
worked with Preston Smith, a consultant from Blue Springs. “We don’t
want to open any of these new schools at capacity, because they’re in
areas that are going to grow,” said Ben Tilley, CPS assistant superintendent
for elementary education.
Borders were adjusted to try to equalize the percentage of students receiv-
ing free or reduced-price meals. Terra Merriweather-Schultz, a Benton
parent, said Benton always has had a high percentage of students qualify-
ing for free and reduced-price meals, but all children receive the same educa-
tion. “They’re kids, and they can adjust,” she said.
The tentative elementary scenario includes extending the southern
boundary of Lee to Grindstone Parkway. The new school will include some
of the territory now in the New Haven attendance area. Some of the Rock
Bridge Elementary School area also was moved to New Haven.
The committees will continue to review the scenarios in shared documents
online before they are posted to the CPS website Dec. 20. The public will be
able to offer comments about the scenarios until Jan. 12, when the committees
would meet again. If the committees make any changes on Jan. 12, the public
will have another chance to weigh in from Jan. 13 to Feb. 2. There also might
be public forums at the schools between Jan. 13 and Feb. 2.
The Columbia Board of Education is scheduled to take action on the recommen-
dations at its Feb. 13 meeting.
Stiepleman said the process has been condensed.
“The kids need to know where they’re going to school next year,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment