Zones May Change

School Boundary Meetings Scheduled For Monday, Tuesday

Saturday, January 26, 2013

— A growing School District means new attendance maps for Rogers students — and the move of all Westside Elementary School students from the Rogers High School zone to the Heritage High School zone.

Presentations to parents Monday and Tuesday will show attendance boundaries redrawn for the fall opening of Janie Darr Elementary School. The Mount Hebron Road school was built for more than 700 students but will open with 300 as administrators anticipate growth in southwest parts of the district.

Zone changes could affect 469 students enrolled in five elementary schools, and the middle school and high school destinations of children living in the Westside Elementary School zone.

At A Glance

Meetings

There will be two public information and feedback meetings on school boundaries where parent input will be collected. A Spanish-language session will be conducted at each school simultaneous with the English session.

• 6:30 p.m. Monday: Heritage High School

• 6:30 p.m. Tuesday: Rogers High School

Student enrollment in the district has increased since the 1990s, said Ashley Kelley Siwiec, public relations coordinator. Siwiec served as a district representative to one of the subcommittees that formulated the proposed changes. Rogers’ attendance zones have been in place since 2008, Siwiec said.

“That’s one of the longest, if not the longest, we’ve been able to go in the last 15 years,” she said.

Representatives from parent organizations, principals and district administrators began meeting in November before voting on the proposal. Parent input from this week’s meetings will be added to a packet for presentation to the School Board on Feb. 19. No plan is final until a vote from the Rogers School Board, Siwiec said.

Siwiec estimated fewer than 10 percent of Rogers’ 14,452 students will be affected by changes. An online forum to gather parent comments will go live on Monday, Siwiec said.

Superintendent Janie Darr planned to unveil the proposal at the Monday meeting. Committee members were asked not to talk about the proposal, which was released early at the request of NWA Media. Darr said Thursday board members would be sent a copy in advance of the meeting.

The board will consider these changes:

• Bellview Elementary School: About 75 students will transfer from Bellview to Darr. The northern boundary for the new school will run parallel with West Drive from Bellview Road to the western edge of the district.

• Eliza Tucker Elementary School: An estimated 226 students will transfer from Tucker to Darry. Students living in the current Tucker boundary west of Interstate 540 will be assigned to the new school.

By The Numbers

Enrollment Up

Year Rogers High School Heritage High School

2009-10 1,919 1,988

2010-11 1,915 2,041

2011-12 1,989 1,989

2012-13 2,102 1,995

• Bonnie Grimes Elementary School: New students will arrive at Tucker this fall from Grimesy. 122 students living between 13th and Eighth streets, south of Blossom Way Creek, will be reassigned from Grimes to Tucker.

• Frank Tillery Elementary School: A pocket of 27 students will transfer from Tillery to Northside. Students living between Easy Street and Will Rogers Drive east of 12th Street will move to Northside.

• Grace Hill Elementary School: A rural area in the Hill attendance zone will be transferred to the Garfield Elementary School zone, affecting 19 students. U.S. 62 will mark the new western boundary for Garfield and the southern boundary will extend along Sugar Creek Road.

• Westside Elementary School: Children who live in the Westside zone will move from Elmwood Middle School to Oakdale Middle School with Heritage as their high school destination. The borders for Westside are between Walnut Street and New Hope Road. Dixieland Road is the eastern border and Turtle Creek, which runs on a diagonal from 28th St. to Interstate 540. A section of Westside’s boundary includes Dixieland to 15th streets between Walnut and Oak streets.

High school students who attend Rogers High now will not switch to Heritage if they can find their own transportation. The proposal offers to grandfather in students who will be in sophomores, juniors or seniors at the high school they currently attend.

Eighth-grade students could finish their last year at their middle school and incoming fifth-grade students can attend the 2013-14 school year at the same elementary before switching to their new boundary pattern.

Students eligible to remain in their same school will see a form in their enrollment packet this spring.

Student changes will force some teacher changes also.

The number of staff members in a school is based on the number of students, said Roger Hill, assistant superintendent for human resources.

The addition of New Tech High School and feeder pattern changes have the potential to affect staffing in all Rogers buildings, Hill said.

“There are a lot of variables that will be considered in this,” Hill said.

Web Watch

Proposed Boundary Changes

To see a map of the proposed boundary changes go to www.nwaonline.com/documents/