Meeting Four: July 15, 2020
The Attendance Boundary Committee met in person at the Burlington High School Library. During introductions, School Board Chairperson, Rosanne Hahn, greeted the committee to share a message from the School Board. She expressed the board’s gratitude for participating in these important decisions and considering the needs of families in the district. Superintendent Stephen Plank shared some opening remarks and logistics related to the meeting space.
Facilitator Drew Howick began the meeting by announcing that two new options will be presented to the committee tonight. The two options are based on the committee’s feedback and suggestions from the prior meeting. The group is still in a discovery mode looking at several options to sift out what may work best based on the evaluation criteria. Since this was the first face-to-face meeting, all committee members introduced themselves again.
Steve Plank addressed the questions committee members raised after the last meeting. The questions related to a theme of how to address special circumstances that may necessitate an in-district transfer. Specifically,
- Siblings of Intellectual Disability (ID) students – Because being born with a disability is not a choice and there is a small population of ID students, it is reasonable to assume siblings could attend school together at Waller Elementary, the location for the ID program.
- Siblings of Montessori students –. Montessori is a choice. The Montessori program has 200 students. Because the capacity at the future Dyer Elementary is limited, it is unlikely that Dyer has the capacity to accommodate all of the potential requests. Therefore, Montessori students would attend Dyer and siblings would attend the assigned school.
- Children of staff members – If it is limited to a few staff members and there is the capacity at the employee’s school, these requests would be considered.
Mark Roffers started his presentation with a review of Option A. Members of all three discussion groups said Option A “meets” or “don’t know if it meets” the three evaluation criteria (no one indicated it “did not meet”). Several members supported having Eagle Lake area in one elementary school. The biggest concerns with Option A were potential socioeconomic imbalance and a desire to split neighborhoods in half. As the committee progresses, viable options may be tweaked (for example Option A.1).
Mark reminded the committee of the evaluation criteria emphasizing the need to rebalance the enrollment. In every plan, some students will have to attend a new school because Dyer Elementary will be new. Also, Waller Elementary needs a decrease in enrollment due to current overcrowding. Lyons Center has room to increase its enrollment, though the student population closest to Lyons is limited. With Montessori students attending Dyer, Cooper and Winkler’s enrollment remains at an appropriate size for the buildings.
Some highlights about Option B include logical walking zones for neighborhoods nearby city schools, keeping Eagle Lake area unified at one school, and potential transportation efficiency. Option B may have a better distribution of neighborhoods with socioeconomic need than Option A. Option B has fewer students changing schools with 239-314 students changing (about 80-90% changing due to attending the new Dyer Elementary School). Most attendance areas are contiguous.
The committee members broke into groups to discuss Option B. When they reconvened, group 1, felt option B met the three criteria. They noted that this option seemed to have more transportation efficiency. The increase in Lyons Center’s enrollment is mostly due to adding the 5th grade. They liked this option better than Option A. Group B liked that neighborhood 11 no longer had to cross State St. They liked the neighborhood continuity. Though the Eagle Lake area is not near Dyer, it seemed it would be easier to get to (using the bypass) than driving through town to Cooper or Waller.
Mark Roffers shares that transportation was considered when creating Option B noting that the district doesn’t bus students living within two miles of a school, and many students would be close enough to walk to school.
In Option C, Dyer’s students come from the North and the current Cooper attendance area. The Eagle Lake area goes to Cooper. Similar to Option B, most attendance areas are contiguous except for Cooper (instead of Dyer in Option B).
The committee members broke into groups to discuss Option C. When they reconvened, group 1 felt that this option did not meet criteria 1 and 2, and five thought it didn’t meet criteria 3 (fiscal responsibility)/one didn’t know. They didn’t like that students have to cross State St. Lyons’ enrollment numbers seem low. They had some suggestions for trading neighborhoods. Group 2 agreed with Group 1 and also had suggestions for substituting out neighborhoods for an alternative plan. Both groups liked Option B better than Option C. They both went back to Option B and suggested tweaks to that plan.
The groups discussed a desire to ensure that students moving schools knew other kids transitioning schools. The options could have mostly Waller students and only a handful of Cooper students attending Dyer which may cause the former Cooper students to feel isolated.
To conclude the meeting, Drew shared that since there was much consensus around Option B, the next meeting may have the last of the “original” options, but may be variations of Option B. The August meeting has been rescheduled from August 17 (the first day of school) to August 24. Though the consultants appreciate everyone’s patience with meeting virtually (it worked better than they would have imagined), meeting in person did – as suspected – facilitate more robust conversations.
Comparison of Options
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Today
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Option A
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Option B
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Option C
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Number of students changing schools
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--
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309-426 students
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239-314
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307 to 408
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% of those to Dyer
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--
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64-75%
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80-90%
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70-75%
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Percent at geographically closest school
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63%
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68%
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61%
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57%
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