ROGERS -- New attendance zones are set and will take effect with the opening of the School District's 16th elementary building in the fall.
The School Board unanimously approved the change Tuesday, capping a rezoning process spanning more than three months.
Moment of silence
The Rogers School Board on Tuesday acknowledged with a moment of silence the recent death of Brig Caldwell, who had worked at Heritage High School since it opened in 2008. He worked out of the school’s front office as student relations coordinator and community liaison.
Source: Staff report
A zoning change was necessary at the elementary level to accommodate the opening of Fairview Elementary School. Fairview's zone will consume what is the eastern half of Darr Elementary School's zone and a slice of Tucker Elementary School's east of Interstate 49. No other school's zone will be affected.
Kristen Cobbs, board president, thanked administrators for making it a smooth process, especially in their communication and addressing the public's concerns upfront.
The process started in September with an advisory committee made up of administrators, teacher and parents that came up with a boundary recommendation. Tweaks were made to that proposal as a result of input collected from public forums in October and a special board meeting Nov. 6.
The recommendation sought to provide enrollment relief for Darr, which is stretched to its limit this year with about 750 students. Darr is expected to open with about 400 students next fall, while Fairview will open with about 470, according to Superintendent Marlin Berry.
Those estimates are fluid, Berry said. The district doesn't know how many kindergartners will show up next fall, nor does it know how many fourth-graders living in Fairview's zone will accept the chance to stay at their current school for fifth grade through a grandfather clause.
Mitch Lockhart, a board member, said he appreciated how the rezoning process was done.
"Sometimes it's easy to just look at things like this and say, 'This is the easiest, this is the least expensive, and this is what works best for us as a district,'" Lockhart said. "But we got to reach out to our community and find out what they want and let them know we want what's best for them."
The next big step for Fairview is hiring its principal, which is expected to happen by Feb. 1, Berry said.
Another Rogers elementary school is in for a big change next year that has nothing to do with zoning, but rather its calendar. The board agreed Tuesday to eliminate the continuous learning calendar Eastside Elementary School has operated on for the last 13 years.
The continuous learning calendar features the same number of school days as the regular academic calendar, but with a shorter summer vacation and more breaks throughout the year. Mathias Elementary School operated on the same calendar for several years before dropping it in 2011.
There are complications for the district in having two calendars, Berry said. A major one is the district has four unused classrooms at the school that can't be used without forcing students in Eastside's zone to attend the school. Families who live in Eastside's zone may opt out of it and send their children to another elementary school if they prefer a traditional calendar.
The decision was made in consultation with Robin Wilkerson, Eastside's principal, Berry said. Wilkerson didn't attend Tuesday's meeting, but Berry read a statement from her: "It's been a great 13 years. We are so grateful for the opportunity we had and will move forward, as we always do, with a positive, can-do attitude."
Berry said Wilkerson suggested the district incorporate some additional days off during the school year into its regular calendar to provide some of those extra breaks that were part of the continuous learning calendar.
Cobbs, who has a child who attended Eastside, agreed with that idea. She said while the calendar isn't the only reason for Eastside's positive culture and student achievement, it definitely has been a part of the school's success. The traditional summer break of more than two months is "really detrimental" to a lot of kids, Cobbs said.
Arkansas Arts Academy, a charter school in Rogers, and three schools in the Fayetteville School District also operate on the continuous learning calendar.
NW News on 12/19/2018