Children To Switch Schools Shifting Boundaries Worry Parents

Lunceford Lane connects the Pine Hill neighborhood to 15th Street and the rest of Coeur d’Alene.

At the east end of Lunceford begins an interconnected maze of streets. On a recent sunny afternoon, a blond boy rode in-line skates down a sidewalk. A girl around the corner walked home from school. And a man in the next block pruned rose bushes, preparing for spring.

This is unmistakably a neighborhood.

Yet, a recent proposal on where children should attend school splits the neighborhood down the middle. Those north of Lunceford would attend Borah Elementary, while those south of Lunceford would attend Fernan Elementary. Currently, all those children attend Bryan Elementary.

“If they’re going to move us, move all of us,” said Cassie Bray, whose daughter is a third-grader. Bray is concerned the division will ruin the neighborhood’s cohesion. “With everything going on in our society, these kids need some stability.”

That type of concern is common as school districts throughout North Idaho prepare to shift attendance boundaries because of the opening and expansion of elementary schools. North Idaho’s three largest districts plan to move some of their youngest children from school to school.

The Coeur d’Alene School District is making changes because it is opening Skyway, its 10th elementary school, in the fall. The Post Falls School District is switching some children from each of its three current elementary schools to a new one, called Mullan Trail, also slated for a fall opening. The new school was created because the district is building a new high school. The current high school will become a middle school and the middle school, the new elementary.

The Lakeland School District is proposing moving some children from three elementary schools into another, Garwood, which is being expanded after the passage of a supplemental levy.

A proposal, to be considered by the Lakeland school board April 10, is as follows: Athol Elementary students in the Chilco Estates area would attend Garwood, as would Spirit Lake Elementary students who live in the Upper Twin Lakes Road area. John Brown Elementary students north of Sturgeon Road also would attend Garwood.

“With that move, it will give each of our buildings a couple of spare classrooms for future growth,” said Ron Schmidt, assistant superintendent in Lakeland.

Growth is the force driving the change. Kootenai County’s population has grown almost 60 percent since 1990, funneling rising numbers of students into schools. Lakeland’s enrollment has grown about 4 percent per year since 1994. Post Falls schools have added 1,000 students in the past 10 years. Coeur d’Alene schools have added 2,000 students in the same time period.

“We say we should be OK for five years or so,” said Post Falls Superintendent Dick Harris. “It could be longer. It could be shorter.”

Coeur d’Alene Superintendent David Rawls said opening the 10th elementary means schools once again will have rooms dedicated solely to music or art, which have been converted to regular classrooms as space became tighter. It means each elementary will have at least one extra classroom to allow for growth. And it means the district will almost completely stop using portable classrooms.

“We have about a whole school worth of portables,” Rawls said. “Well over 20 classrooms are in portables.”

Despite the benefits, the change is painful for families.

Parents and children are uprooted from the schools they love. Parents who have volunteered in classrooms and on parent-teacher organizations have developed bonds with teachers and have a vested interest in the school. Children make friends and want to stay with them as they progress in grades.

Teresa Bond is a Post Falls mother of four. Her daughter, Marissa, is in third grade at Seltice Elementary and will be switched to Mullan Trail in the fall.

“We moved to Seltice in 1993 and just now, I feel like I know a lot of the teachers. To have to start all over …,” she said. “Marissa’s gone there for three years. I help once a week. I go on field trips, help with bake sales.”

Still, Bond said, after talking to the principal and a school board member, she’s feeling comfortable with the switch now and plans to volunteer at the new school.

Almost 300 residents of Pineview Estates and Emerald Estates signed a petition saying they do not want their children taken out of Hayden Meadows Elementary and moved to Hayden Lake Elementary. Some said they bought their homes in those areas thinking their children would attend Hayden Meadows.

“This plan is not considerate of our children,” said Jim Kinsey, an Emerald Estates resident, at a recent community forum.

The concern of parents and students makes an already tough decision even harder. Districts spend months studying enrollment maps and population concentrations to decide which students should be moved.

The Post Falls district put together a committee including parents, teachers and administrators who worked to even out the population of each school. They also considered transportation routes and neighborhoods when making their decision.

After that, letters were sent to affected families, community forums were held and the school’s new principal began visiting children and parents to ease their concerns.

“Change is good, but none of us like it,” said Bob Sloyka, who will be principal of Mullan Trail. “If these kids are fourth graders, they’ve gone to that school for four years.”

That’s the process the Coeur d’Alene School District is going through right now, although on a larger scale. Most of the district’s nine elementary schools will be affected by the opening of the 10th. A similar committee to the one formed in Post Falls has been working for seven months to develop new boundaries.

Last Monday night, the district held a public forum to obtain feedback on its first draft proposal.

None of the more than 100 parents who attended seemed happy with the plan. Two neighborhood groups have started petition drives to oppose the proposal.

The day after the forum, the committee met again to start sorting through the comments and suggestions. Committee Chairwoman Stephanie Powers emphasized that the draft plan was not “a done deal.”

“It’s really emotional when you have to move your kids,” Powers said. “I had to move my kids in the last one.

But, she said, “When you’re in a community that’s growing and changing and shifting population, you have to adapt. No one plan is going to meet all the criteria perfectly.

“We used to think that opening a new school, everybody would want to go to the new school. But we’ve got such great schools that nobody wants to leave their school.”