Boundary changes for Lake View & Chavez?

A story by Susan Troller in the Cap Times reports:

Two elementary schools at opposite ends of the Madison Metropolitan School District are bursting at the seams and may face boundary changes next year to deal with crowding.

Lake View Elementary on the northeast side of the city and Chavez Elementary on the southwest side are both well over their intended capacities, with Lake View at 116 percent and Chavez at 108 percent.

Lake View has an enrollment of 309 students, but is designed for 266. Chavez, with an intended capacity of 602 students, has an enrollment this year of 652 students.

Lake View has an enrollment of 309 students, but is designed for 266. Chavez, with an intended capacity of 602 students, has an enrollment this year of 652 students.

At a Long Range Planning Committee meeting Monday night, School Board President Johnny Winston Jr. noted that in the past, Lake View Elementary parents and staff members said they would prefer dealing with crowding issues internally rather than face boundary changes.

"A couple of years ago we knew Lake View was crowded. They doubled up a room and put some special programs on a cart to free up classroom space. We'll talk again with the school community. Boundary changes may be part of the dialogue now," Winston said.

Although crowding at Chavez will ease when the district's new far west side school at the Linden Park site opens in two years, concerns about the continuing population crunch next year may require action by fall 2007, School Board member Arlene Silveira said.

"We are committed to looking at some solutions to crowding at these two schools. Their numbers are just too high," Silveira said.

At Monday's meeting, Mary Gulbrandsen, district chief of staff, suggested that an option for next year could be moving about 60 students who live in the High Ridge Trail neighborhood in Fitchburg from Chavez to Thoreau Elementary. To accommodate this influx of students at Thoreau, 20-some students living in the Allied neighborhood would move from Thoreau, and be given the choice of attending Crestwood or Stephens Elementary. The Allied students would then attend Memorial High School, and the High Ridge Trail students would attend West.

This particular student switch had already been suggested as an option when the new school opens in 2008, but would be moved up a year if approved as the correct strategy for dealing with current crowding at Chavez.

Gulbrandsen said the administration also looked at the idea of outposting students from Chavez for a year or two while the new school is being built.

Outposting typically involves moving an entire grade from one school to another where there is excess capacity. But Gulbrandsen said there did not appear to be any single school on the west side where four classrooms would be available.

"We'd like the administration to take a look at the options, and crunch the numbers in terms of impact, including how it would affect the various grades at each school," Silveira said.

She also noted that it would be important to look at how the proposed changes would affect the numbers of low-income students at each school.

Posted by Ed Blume at November 14, 2006 3:23 PM
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