The issue of school boundaries and the extensive, thorough work of the Long-Range Planning Committee has been ongoing for several years. The Committee continues to gather data, seek input, and investigate potential solutions to existing boundary challenges while planning for future enrollment fluctuations and population shifts. 

Potential school boundary changes are a significant issue for LPS families and the community. Families build powerful bonds with their schools and teachers. Changing boundaries, even on a somewhat small scale, is a big deal.

Where we've been, where we are now, and where we are going

A year ago, the Board of Education charged the Long-Range Planning Committee to “review current elementary school boundaries east of Broadway and consider possible options to alleviate overcrowding at Dr. Justina Ford Elementary School.”

Long-Range Planning Committee members met from mid-August through mid-October in 2022. They reviewed Committee values, previous research and data, previous recommendations and Board decisions. They held two community open houses, which were well attended with about 100 community members each night. They reviewed emails, comment cards, and all of the feedback gathered from open house attendees.

They studied the feasibility of community member suggestions, the effects of different possible boundary change scenarios, actual enrollment, class size in elementary schools across the district, the impacts of open enrollment, and square foot per student comparisons. 

All of this information was presented to the Board in the Committee’s report October 27, 2022.

The Long-Range Planning Committee recommended the Board make no adjustments to boundaries at that time, but consider doing a district demographic study and analysis of enrollment projections for the 2023–2024 school year, and continue to follow Board policy regarding open enrollment. 

Before making a decision, the Board directed administration to provide information on two additional options, which would move various neighborhoods into different school boundaries.

In November 2022, administration presented data on the Board’s two additional options and also brought forward the Long-Range Planning Committee’s recommendation. The Board ultimately voted in favor of the Committee’s recommendation: to make no boundary changes at that time, to gather additional data including actual 2023–2024 enrollment, and conduct a districtwide demographic study.

In May of 2023, administration provided an update to the Board and proposed a timeline that would convene a smaller, more nimble subset of the Long-Range Planning Committee to review the demographer’s new data, which would include information on children aged 0–4 as well as his findings after visiting with city planners and local real estate experts. These new data would be added to the extensive, accurate data already reviewed by the entire Long-Range Planning Committee last year. 

The smaller committee would host community engagement meetings and would then present its findings and recommendations to the Board, all in the span of about 9 weeks.

And during the May 23, 2023 meeting, the Board approved a motion to move forward with the proposed timeline. 

The Board emphasized its desire to make decisions regarding boundaries by the end of October 2023 to give families as much time as possible to plan for the 2024–2025 school year. 

That brings us to today. 

The standards and values of the Long-Range Planning Committee have been in place since its inception in 2017 and remain in place today:

• Keep neighborhoods together when possible.
• Seek transportation efficiencies and avoid wherever possible crossing major north/south arterial roads, or busing students past one school to attend another.
• Create schools of optimal size: 3 or 4 rounds, considering facility capacity, programming, with and without out-of-district enrollment.
• Consider current feeder patterns to middle schools and high schools.
• Consider socioeconomic balance.

Nine long-standing and highly involved community members of the Long-Range Planning Committee representing current taxpayers who are also current and former parents make up the committee. 

Terry Davis, chief operations officer, and Brad Leitner, director of operations, serve as staff liaisons. Other administrators including directors of elementary and secondary education, chief communications officer, chief information officer, assistant superintendent of learning services, and director of transportation, are asked to attend the meetings to observe, answer committee members’ questions, and support the work of the committee.

At the Committee's first meeting, it became apparent that the decision to stand up a smaller subset of the original committee with vast experience on the topic in order to work quickly was a good one. They dove right into the work. The group chose Jack Reutzel as the Chair of this smaller committee and named Lucie Stanish and Bob Colwell as Past Chairs who will help lead during the condensed timeline. 

Demographer Shannon Bingham presented his new data and offered sample boundary solutions based on all data accumulated to-date. Members will continue to study these samples and asked Shannon to provide additional samples for the next meeting.

Three community town hall input sessions have been scheduled for September 19, 20, and 21. 

The Committee and the Board will continue to conduct business openly and transparently, genuinely listening to the feedback regarding how families may be impacted, and being proactive with communication.

The Committee is scheduled to present its findings and recommendations to the Board in October. Recommendations could be made for the 2024–2025 school year or the 2025–2026 school year.

The Board of Education reconvened the LRPC at the Board meeting on August 11, 2022

Meetings will be held from 4:30–6:30 p.m. at the Education Services Center