Bulletin E-Edition:
School boundaries are shifting
Redmond district staff teaming with parents to explore options; public meetings planned
By Patrick Cliff / The Bulletin
Published: November 23. 2009 4:00AM PST
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Melanie Rogers just wants the new elementary school boundaries in Redmond to be logical.
Rogers has friends who drive by several schools on the way to drop their children off each morning. Her daughter, Valerie, 8, is a third-grader at Evergreen Elementary and wants to attend its replacement next year.
The school’s construction has been paid for with $20 million from the $110 million bond voters passed in 2008. The new, 600-student school will be about two miles south of Evergreen, which the district is closing because repairs to the building would have cost about as much as constructing a new school.
Rogers just hopes Valerie’s new school is close to home. “It doesn’t matter one way or the other if she’s in the new school,” she said. “They can’t make everybody happy, but there should be some logical thinking involved.”
The district’s efforts will be guided by computer programs and parents from each of its five elementary schools and two community schools. The committee will meet over the coming weeks before it presents two boundary options to the public in December.
The committee, which also includes district staff, hopes to have a final boundary ready by mid-January. It is working through several issues, including how to keep students in the city within walking distance of their schools.
The redrawing may affect students at all five elementary schools.
Next year, a new elementary school will replace Evergreen and force the redrawing, according to Chief Operations Officer Doug Snyder.
The committee does not have any maps ready, Snyder said.
“At this point, they are using a computer system to help generate options,” he said. “They’ll go through sessions to develop the pros and cons of each.”
Because Evergreen will close after this year, all of its students will be in a new building in 2010-11. That’s one reason why Debbie Williams, who has two children at the school, joined the committee.
“Evergreen students have a huge change,” Williams said. “I was really curious about how the process was going to work.”
One of the committee’s charges is to not split neighborhoods between schools, according to member Jim Crouch. But there might be more options for the committee than in years past. State Highway 126, for example, has a 25-mph speed limit east of Redmond High School.
With the low speed limit, Crouch said the committee could potentially have one school’s boundary bridge the road. Now, he said, the highway divides boundaries.
“That’s going to be a hot topic,” said Crouch, who lives in Tumalo. “In the past, the perception has been, ‘That’s the highway. You’re going to make my kids walk across the highway?’”
Before any changes are made, the committee will hold several public meetings in December so parents can comment on the plan, Snyder said.
From there, the committee will recommend one option to the district. Shawna Angerhofer, a parent of children at M.A. Lynch Elementary, said the boundary work has been difficult.
“We’re trying to narrow it down,” Angerhofer said. “We’ll try to do the best for the families.”
Crouch said committee members — who are mostly district parents — understand the stakes are high.
No one, he said, wants their lives disrupted too much by the new boundaries. Because of that, committee members are looking forward to the public meetings in December, Crouch said.
“After those meetings, we’re going to sit back down again and do what the general public would like to see done in a situation. We want to hear what they have to say.”
Patrick Cliff can be reached at 541-633-2161 or at pcliff@bendbulletin.com.
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