District Considers Major Moves In Attendance Zones

SPRINGDALE — About 50 Springdale students in the Station Apartments ride the bus two miles to Lee Elementary School.

Next year they could go five miles to Turnbow Elementary School, traveling past four schools closer to their home.

A thousand students could change schools in 2011 under a proposed attendance zone map for elementary schools east of Thompson Street.

Many of them would go to schools farther from their home, said Ron Bradshaw, assistant superintendent.

The district is building an elementary school in Sonora, east of Springdale. The zoning change is needed to populate the school and relieve crowding in other buildings, he said.

Bayyari, Parson Hills, Harp, Jones and George elementary schools are surrounded by densely packed neighborhoods where hundreds of children live and walk to school. It would be expensive to start busing them, Bradshaw said.

Therefore, students already riding the bus were moved to other schools, he said.

Busing Station Apartment residents to Turnbow may look stupid, Bradshaw said, but students need to be shifted to schools that can house them.

“It’s not perfect, but it works,” he said.

Yisel Ramirez, who lives at the apartment complex and whose child would be reassigned to Turnbow, said the school is too far away. The apartment complex is near the 3200 block of South Thompson Street, on the east side of the road.

Ramirez said she would not mind sending her child to Tyson Elementary School, a mile northwest of the complex.

Sending those students to Tyson isn’t feasible because they would cross Thompson Street, Bradshaw said. Officials use Thompson as a hard boundary between east and west side elementary schools. It results in fewer schools being rezoned at one time.

Bessie Miranda-Lopez, another resident of Station Apartments, doesn’t have children in school but thinks Turnbow is too far away.

Others set to change schools include 130 Bayyari students who would move to Monitor Elementary School. Some students near Butterfield Coach Road and Emma Avenue will go to the new school in Sonora.

A committee of administrators and parents developed the zones, which were designed to have contiguous boundaries.

The Turnbow zone circles around George and Harp, but it remains in one piece, Bradshaw said.

Most changes were unavoidable because so many children live near the city schools, said Sarah Miller, a Monitor parent who served on the committee. Students who can walk should not be moved, she said.

No one objected to the plan at a recent meeting for parents at Harp Elementary School, where 98 students could change schools.

Bradshaw made a good case for the new boundaries, even though bus rides may be farther for some students, said Karren Pegue, Harp parent.

Allison Strange, Harp principal, said she looks forward to the new school year.

“We’ll take good care of our kids wherever they are from,” she said.

The Sonora school takes in all students east of the White River and Beaver Lake to the Madison County line.

The area is sparsely populated, so Sonora has room for city residents, Bradshaw said. The district estimates it will open with about 630 students.

The district will host meetings this month to solicit feedback from parents. They can also call Bradshaw’s office at 750-8745.

After the meetings, the committee will consider revisions. Superintendent Jim Rollins will review the final plan, then it will be presented in March to the Springdale School Board.

About 5,158 students go to elementary schools east of Thompson Street. There are 4,266 in the schools west of Thompson.