Mead School Board Oks New Boundaries

Facing rows of empty seats, the Mead School Board redrew district attendance boundaries Tuesday night to accommodate a second high school.

“I expected this place would be swarming with people this evening, and my phone would be ringing off the hook,” said board member Frank Hoover.

The five-member school board unanimously accepted the recommendation of a 25-person boundary planning committee, which had labored since October. Two public meetings were held, but there were just a handful of complaints voiced, said district administrator Al Swanson.

The board’s action changed the district’s north-south axis to an east-west division along the Little Spokane River and U.S. Highway 2.

Students living on the west side will attend Northwood Junior High and Mead High School.

Students on the eastern half will attend Mead Junior High and Mount Spokane-Mead High School, which will open in September 1997.

Sixth-graders will attend their new junior high schools next year; the rest of the students will change at the beginning of the 1997-98 school year.

Elementary school boundaries were left unchanged, although the junior high assignments for Midway and Shiloh Hills students were changed.

The same committee will reconvene in the fall to consider new elementary attendance boundaries, said Swanson.

“Every time we have done boundary changes, the kids adjust fine,” said Kathleen Perks, chairman of the planning committee. “It’s the adults that have the problems.”

, DataTimes