School board approves attendance boundary change in first of many

The Spokane Public Schools board of directors has unanimously approved a school attendance boundary change.

The change is in response to the 240-unit Copper River Apartments and a 75-unit Catholic Charities development. The two developments are expected to add about 100 elementary students to the district.

In response to the new developments, administrators recommended changing the attendance boundaries of the development area from the Hutton/Sacajawea/Lewis and Clark boundary area to the Audubon/Glover/North Central boundary.

The boundary change is likely just the first of many. The district plans to change attendance boundaries by 2021 and may move sixth-graders into middle school. Those changes are in response to increasing enrollment and new statewide K-3 class-size reductions.

The 76-unit Catholic Charities development west of Fort George Wright Drive, near Spokane Falls Community College, is expected to be finished in a year. It will serve homeless families and is just one piece of an ambitious Catholic Charities building blitz aimed at ending chronic street homelessness by 2020.

Meanwhile, some of the Copper River apartments, off Fort George Wright Drive near West Elliott Drive, will be complete in September, with all 240 finished and occupied by January.

District administrators will now develop transportation routes for the start of school in the fall and notify the developers of the boundary changes.