Redo of zones FHS on board docket
Posted on Thursday, November 20, 2008
Criteria for redrawing attendance zones and criteria guiding what the new high school campus should be like are two topics the Fayetteville Board of Education will take up today.
The board meeting will start at 5 p.m. in the Adams Leadership Center, 1000 W. Stone St.
The board isn’t expected to redraw attendance zones until the 2010-2011 school year. However, board member Becky Purcell suggested, and the other members agreed, that a discussion on the criteria for rezoning could begin this year.
Purcell wanted to re-evaluate the criteria because it has been three years since changes in boundaries were adopted.
The last time attendance boundaries were reconfigured, for the 2006-2007 school year, the board adopted five criteria in 2005:
• School capacities: the available classroom space and functional capacity in individual buildings.
• Transportation, safety and efficiency: “School zones shall be created with a commitment to maintaining a reasonable time of safe travel to the school/".
• Keeping neighbors together: “School zones shall allow students residing in neighborhood clusters to attend the same school, if possible."
• Diversity: Zones “shall provide for improved diversity among the student population where possible. Consideration will be given to socio-economic indicators, race and ethnicity.”
• Stability: The zones would remain stable for three to five years.
Purcell said she plans to ask the other board members to state what they view as the most important criteria to guide rezoning.
“Not to try to persuade each other, just to state the primary criteria and the reasons why,” Purcell said. “My goal in leading the discussion Thursday will be to discuss that.”
In regard to the top criteria from the 2005 list, the administration last reported to the school board on the estimated building capacities at the district’s elementary schools during a special meeting in November 2007.
Two schools within the district that are currently rated as over capacity based on their current enrollments are Holcomb and Root Elementary schools.
Holcomb has an official fall enrollment of 622 students, while its estimated capacity is around 600.
Root has as an estimated capacity of 500 students but an enrollment of 542 students. A portable building was added to the campus this year to accommodate the high enrollment.
“They are busting at the seams,” said Alan Wilbourn, public information officer for the school district.
School officials are not sure why Root’s enrollment has been so high, as many of the neighborhoods in the school’s attendance zone are older, established neighborhoods rather than new developments, he said.
“It could just be turnover in housing,” Wilbourn said.
“You can look at the rezoning the last time around and see that we did add to the Root zone. At the time there was some room to add to the Root zone,” Purcell said.
Vandergriff Elementary School is considered close to capacity with 662 students and a facility that can hold about 700 children, he said.
Butterfield Trail Elementary School had an estimated capacity for 521 students and a fall enrollment of 448 students. Asbell Elementary School has an enrollment of 423 students and a capacity close to 500.
Washington Elementary School has about 350 students, and its capacity has been estimated at around 400.
Schools with plenty of available space are Owl Creek School, which was designed for 1,000 students and has about 667 pupils, and Leverett Elementary School, which has 324 students. Leverett’s building capacity was estimated to be 520.
The district Web site includes a blog about the agenda item, webapps.fayar.net/mt/community It featured three comments as of Tuesday afternoon.
On another matter related to attendance zones, Associate Superintendent Ginny Wiseman is recommending the district repeal its policy that requires students to attend the school in the attendance zone where they live. A memo in the agenda packet stated, “Standards and assurance regulations from the Arkansas Department of Education preclude any transfer policy.”
More than just building a new high school, the Fayetteville Board of Education and administration want to redesign the campus into a 21st century learning environment, according to a sheet in the agenda packet.
The sheet lists 13 items of characteristics the high school will have when it is redesigned:
• The 9-12 high school will embrace an evolving new instructional model and create the school as a workplace for 21st century students.
• Indoor and outdoor gathering spaces are incorporated into circulation areas; circulation spaces are no longer just hallways.
• Courtyards and amphitheaters will create attractive green spaces and gathering areas
• New and adequate spaces will be made for choir and band
• A new food service model will be based around a food court and more gathering spaces
• Vocational spaces will be merged into the design of the building rather than a “shop out back”
The board is also scheduled to discuss the planning needed for a new high school and possible visits to other schools as part of the information-gathering process.
Other topics on the agenda include an update on the renovation and construction at Butterfield Trail Elementary School.
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