Board OKs new school attendance boundaries

By Emily Richmond

Tuesday, March 1, 2005 | 11:02 a.m.

During a visit to a third grade classroom Monday, Clark County School Board member Ruth Johnson asked students if they had any advice for her to follow that evening when she would vote on new attendance zone boundaries for the district's elementary schools.

"They said, 'We don't really care as long as you don't move anybody in our school,' " Johnson said. "That's pretty much what we hear every year at every zoning meeting."

The content of Monday's meeting didn't stray far from that pattern, with a dozen parents showing up to urge School Board members to leave their children alone.

Within 90 minutes the School Board approved new attendance boundaries affecting thousands of students and more than two dozen elementary schools, including seven new campuses opening in August, making it one of the speediest zoning votes in recent memory.

The School Board will meet tonight to vote on attendance zone boundary changes for the district's secondary schools, including the new Arbor View High School in the northwest valley.

For some parents there is no logic to the district's zoning formula.

Why, wondered Daniella Peralta, did her children have to leave Frias Elementary School in their Southern Highlands neighborhood while students living outside of the master-planned community were bused in to take their seats?

"We bought our house two years ago because we wanted our children to attend a neighborhood school," Peralta said. "This makes no sense to anybody."

The explanation of district staff, that attendance zone boundaries are drawn with an eye toward ethnic and socioeconomic diversity as well as "feeder school" alignment, was of little comfort to Peralta and others.

With the district adding 12,000 to 15,000 students each year, and a shortage of elementary school seats looming in fast-growing areas, the annual process of redrawing of boundary lines is admittedly complicated, said Dusty Dickens, director of zoning and demographics for the district.

"We do our best to make the most of the available seats we have, ease overcrowding whenever possible and try to keep neighborhoods intact," Dickens said.

The district's Attendance Zone Advisory Commission, made up of appointees representing each of the five geographic regions, holds public input meetings and drafts boundary recommendations for the School Board to consider.

The School Board put off just one of AZAC's recommendations Monday, involving students expected to move into two yet-to-be-built apartment complexes near the intersection of Rancho Drive and Holly Avenue near Interstate 95.

The apartment complex sites are both close to Detwiler Elementary School but that campus is already overcrowded with more than 1,000 students attending year round, about 150 students over capacity.

Parson Elementary School, located in the district's northwest region near the intersection of Alexander and Decatur, is farther away but is "under-utilized" with 660 students attending on a nine-month calendar, said Carolyn Edwards, president of AZAC.

School Board member Denise Brodsky said she was uncomfortable making a zoning recommendation for "ghost students" who may or may not materialize.

"We really do have a mandate to do nothing if we don't have to," Brodsky said. "We should leave things alone as long as possible and not disrupt families and students."

The School Board instructed district staff to come back by the end of April with more specific information including when families are expected to move into the finished apartments.

Several parents remained in their seats after the meeting had adjourned, appearing mystified as to how the School Board could have approved 29 zoning changes with a single vote.

"That's it?" asked Joy Sellinger, who spoke out against plans to move students from Marion Earl Elementary School to Jydstrup Elementary School, including three of her children. "They're not even going to talk about anything we had to say. We have no voice whatsoever with these people."

Sellinger criticized the district's notification process and said she knew nothing of the proposed zoning changes until a neighbor mentioned it over the weekend.

The district held a series of public input meetings earlier this year and sent notices home with students via the"backpack express," Dickens said. The cost of sending home mailers to every household is beyond her department's budget, Dickens said.

School Board President Larry Mason said he plans to ask for a review of the district's notification process to ensure parents are being given enough notice far enough in advance. However, Mason said, given that the district's families are often on the move, there will always be people who learn of the zoning changes after the fact.

"We'll get calls and e-mails from them tomorrow and next week and next month," Mason said. "There are avenues for people who are unhappy. They can request zoning variances and we're always open to hearing people's individual concerns."

At least one person left Monday's meeting satisfied: Donna Valenca, whose daughter will trade a bus ride to Brookman Elementary School for a short walk down Carey Avenue to the new Liliam Lujan Hickey Elementary School.

"It's very nice for my daughter to go to school at the end of my street instead of three miles away," Valenca said Monday. "I may be the only one, but I got what I wanted."