Rogers Focuses on Enrollment Numbers

— A growing district and increasing enrollment is creating changes for Rogers schools, Superintendent Janie Darr said during a Tuesday meeting detailing proposed changes to attendance zones in the School District.

Web Watch

Visit www.nwaonline.com/d… to see maps of the proposed boundary changes.

This fall the district opens a new elementary school on Mount Hebron Road named after the superintendent and maps are being drawn to fill seats in the school.

The new elementary school will draw from Tucker and Bellview elementary schools. To ease crowding at Bonnie Grimes Elementary School and to make up for the Tucker transfer some Grimes students will move to Tucker. A few students will transfer from Frank Tillery Elementary School to Northside Elementary School and some of Grace Hill Elementary School’s attendance zone that borders Pea Ridge will transfer to Garfield Elementary School.

District priorities in redrawing school maps at the elementary school were to fill the new school, balance enrollment and growth rates at the schools and aim for maintaining a neighborhood base for the schools, Darr said. High school and middle school students had the additional priority of keeping demographics equal at both high schools, something important to the School Board when the two high schools were established.

“One of the board's goals when we went to two high schools was to not have a “have” and a “have not” high school,” Darr said. “That has been achieved.”

Meeting Information

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The Rogers School Board will meet for a study session at 5 p.m. with a 6 p.m. meeting to follow Feb. 19 at the Joye R. Kelley Administration Building, 500 W. Walnut.

Enrollment, Darr said, has increased at Rogers High School.

A graph displaying enrollment trends shows Rogers with 2,102 students enrolled this year. Heritage High School has 1,995, according to numbers released by the School District. Last year both schools had 1,989 students.

According to the proposed plan, middle school changes will move Garfield students to Greer Lingle Middle School instead of Oakdale Middle School. They will still attend Heritage High School. However, children living within the Westside Elementary School boundary will change both middle and high schools. They will switch from Elmwood Middle School to Oakdale and attend Heritage High School.

Those changes allow for growth at Rogers High School, said business manager David Cauldwell. The proposal shows 2,236 students assigned to the Heritage boundary and 1,683 assigned to Rogers High School. Those numbers don’t reflect the students who will actually attend the schools, Darr said. Cauldwell said he expects them to be about equal by the time students opt in to a grandfathering system. Students currently enrolled in high school would also have the option to stay in their school.

The plan also calls for giving students going into fifth and eight grades this fall the option to finish out their elementary or middle school career in the school they have attended, Darr said. Parents who choose to grandfather in their students would be responsible for transportation.

Many questions from parents during the session focused on the grandfathering system, requesting grandfathering for siblings in order to keep families together and a grandfathering system that would allow students to finish their feeder pattern.

Bellview parents asked for consideration for five or so fifth-graders who will be headed to a different middle school than their peers. Parents in the Westside boundary asked how they can be expected to juggle involvement at both high schools. Darr talked briefly about New Tech High School, an opt-in charter starting this fall.

Most answers, Darr said, would need to be considered by the board.

As parents talked about their suggestions, Jerry Carmichael, School Board president, asked they be sure to write down each comment. The comment sheets will be copied for board members, Darr said. An online comment form is available through the district's website.

A School Board presentation of the plan is scheduled for Feb. 19 with a vote anticipated during its March meeting.

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