Santa Maria-Bonita School District’s new school will start out with approximately 750 students at the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year. The district’s school board unanimously approved boundary changes to accommodate for school No. 20 (it’s still waiting for an official name) at a special meeting on March 4.
According to district spokesperson Maggie White, there were three changes made to the original boundary proposal after the district heard parent feedback on the potential changes. She added that boundaries were discussed during parent meetings at affected schools, a general meeting with parents, and at least four school board meetings.
“All this was done because the board wanted to make sure there were plenty of opportunities for public/parent input,” White said.
The district was originally going to move students from Alvin to Rice Elementary School, move even more students from Rice to Taylor Elementary School, and move some of the special education classes at Taylor to another school. White said parents raised concerns about the changes, especially with regard to Taylor’s special education program.
“The special ed students at Taylor are very successfully integrated into the regular ed program, and the [special education] teachers have developed a well-oiled team approach to teaching. They didn’t want that disrupted,” White said.
Parents spoke up at board meetings and wrote a few letters to the board, so the district decided against making the set of moves that would have caused the relocation of Taylor’s special education program.
“However, the overcrowding at Alvin and Rice will not be relieved next school year,” White said. “Their boundaries will stay as they are today.”
Also included in the original proposal was moving 332 students from Adam Elementary School’s boundaries to those of the new school. Parents with students who live close to the back side of Adam were included in that proposal, and they felt that they lived too close to Adam to be included in the new school’s boundary. White said board members agreed, and thus 118 students were taken out of the proposal, leaving 214 for school No. 20.
“This leaves 118 students at Adam, so Adam will not see as much of a reduction in enrollment as originally planned, and [school No.] 20 will not have as many students as originally planned,” she said.
In addition to the students from Adam, the new school will be pulling 313 students from Liberty Elementary School and 206 students from Battles Elementary School. Other schools in the district will feel a little bit of a reprieve from overcrowding with the boundary changes, as the district is shuffling students between several other schools as well.
This article appears in Mar 12-19, 2015.