Cda School District Faces Long Division Many Parents Oppose Proposed Elementary School Boundaries
Ron Newman’s daughter came home from Dalton Gardens Elementary School on Friday with a troubling question.
“She said, `Dad, is it true I’m going to be taken away from my friends?”’ Newman told the Coeur d’Alene School Board on Monday night.
Newman told his daughter he’d try to find out whether she is going to be switched to Bryan Elementary School, as the yellow flier she had been given at school suggests.
Newman was one of about 120 parents who showed up to protest the district’s proposed attendance boundaries, which dictate where elementary and middle school children would go to school next year. Changes are necessary because the district is opening its 10th elementary school in the fall. Skyway Elementary is being built west of Lake City High School.
The school board held a special meeting in Woodland Middle School’s auditorium to hear a recommendation on new boundaries.
“The members of the board know that an attendance zone change is an emotionally charged issue, and we take it very seriously,” said board Chairwoman Wanda Quinn. “We know most of you would like to stay where you are.”
The board plans to decide on the new boundaries next Monday.
A committee of parents, teachers and principals has been working for seven months to determine an equitable distribution of children. Among the factors the committee is considering are class size, future growth and the safety of children who walk to school.
Almost every elementary school is affected by the committee’s recommendation, and maps have been displayed in elementary and middle schools since last week. The proposal also calls for some changes in middle school populations.
“The problem with this is there is no really good answer,” said Steve Briggs, the district’s business manager, who also serves on the attendance committee. “Anything the board chooses to act on will be somewhat controversial.”
Newman was part of a group of about 35 parents from Canfield Park, which is east of 15th Street, between Shadduck Lane and Dalton Avenue. Those parents said the 19 elementary school children in their neighborhood don’t have a huge impact on Dalton’s attendance and should be allowed to remain.
Parents who live in Pineview Estates, near Hayden, made up the other major group at the meeting.
The committee’s last proposal called for children who live in Pineview and its next-door neighbor, Emerald Estates, to switch from Hayden Meadows to Hayden Lake elementary schools. Almost 300 parents signed a petition opposing that idea.
The most recent proposal allows Emerald Estates children to stay at Hayden Meadows, but calls for Pineview kids to switch to Hayden Lake.
About 20 parents showed up Monday night to ask that the neighborhoods’ children be kept together, at Hayden Meadows.
“My daughter doesn’t understand demographics,” said Paul Caraway, father of a 9-year-old Hayden Meadows student. “What she does understand is friends and family. You split our neighborhood right in half. Please let us stay together.”