Mead Schools Ok Redistricting Elementary Students To Be Moved To Ease Overcrowding

Hundreds of Mead elementary students will be swapping school colors in coming years.

Mead school board members Wednesday decided unanimously to adopt a redistricting plan that shuffles 682 students among five of the district’s seven elementary schools to help ease the strain on overcrowded schools.

The boundary changes will be implemented in the 2001-2002 school year. The plan will move 78 students out of Midway to Brentwood and Farwell, 314 students from Colbert to Meadow Ridge and 290 out of Meadow Ridge to Colbert and Farwell.

In adopting the plan, the board also directed the administration to address the feasibility of housing the Colbert kindergarten class of 2000-2001 at Farwell, of sixth-grade students remaining at their current elementary for the 2001-2002 school year, and of housing the current Colbert kindergarten students from the Peone Northwest neighborhood at Meadow Ridge next year as first-graders.

Otherwise, the plan would cause successive school changes for those students. Some sixth-graders, for example, would have to change schools according to the proposed boundaries and then change again when they graduate to middle school.

“No one wants to move their children, but we have to,” said board president Frank Hoover. “I think the children will adapt if the parents are willing to go along with the decisions made.”

About 20 people showed up at Wednesday’s meeting to hear the results of about two years of research by the Citizens Boundary Review Planning Committee.

The committee of nine parents was originally formed last year to study overcrowding at Colbert Elementary School. Three district staff members worked with the committee as advisers.

Based on that study, school board members decided to move Colbert’s kindergarten class to Farwell this year to temporarily ease crowding.

This year, the board asked the committee to study whether there is a need to change elementary school boundaries because of current or projected overcrowding. The committee also was asked to make a recommendation that would eliminate a need for school changes for seven years.

The Mead district covers 180 square miles from the Spokane County line west of Lookout Mountain, east to Mount Spokane, and from Five Mile Prairie north past Wild Rose Road. The district’s seven elementary schools house 3,906 students.

In the past five years, only Colbert has seen steady enrollment growth. But by 2004, Colbert and Midway are expected to exceed 637 students, the number deemed by district officials as maximum enrollment.

Committee members met weekly to discuss options. They projected enrollment based on expected residential growth. They examined proposed housing developments and areas within the urban growth boundaries. They looked at boundary configurations that minimized the disruption of neighborhoods and kept geographical boundaries intact.

Two public meetings were held before the committee made its recommendation to the school board. Then, additional public comment was taken at a May 10 board meeting. About 100 people attended that meeting. Of the 21 people who spoke, only one was completely in favor of the committee’s proposal.

Others were concerned about dividing neighborhoods, the safety of kids who would have to be bused across busy highways and, especially, the great number of kids who would be affected by the proposal.

When making their decision Wednesday, board members expressed those same concerns, but agreed that the boundary committee’s proposal fulfilled the board’s objectives while also staying within its guidelines. The only change they made to the proposal was to keep the 54 students who live north of Hazard/Austin Road at Midway instead of moving them to Brentwood.

But if Midway reaches capacity in coming years - as it is projected to do - those students would have to move to Brentwood also, officials said.

At least one parent at the meeting was upset by the news.

Chris Burkhardt lives on Hazard Road in the rural area called Dartford. Two of his six children attend Midway, but in two years, will be switched to Brentwood.

“To separate 27 kids out of (the 81 in the Dartford area) is wrong. They’re all rural kids,” he said. Burkhardt also expressed frustration that the decision seems to cater to families that might not ever exist.

“Why not shuttle the new kids to Brentwood when they move in? In my opinion, they’re doing this for the people who aren’t even there yet,” he said. “That makes it difficult.”