Nine Spring ISD elementary schools will have altered attendance boundaries—impacting about 419 students—in the 2023-24 school year after trustees approved new maps April 11.
Boundaries for Burchett, Marshall, Clark, Salyers, Anderson, Smith, Meyer, Cooper and Heritage elementary schools will be shifted beginning in August. The changes were made to account for expected population increases that would leave some of the campuses over capacity, Chief Operations Officer Mark Miranda said during the school board’s March 7 meeting, when the changes were first discussed.
“The purpose would be to improve student outcomes ... and to really balance out our campuses ... to ensure that the resources are equitably distributed, to provide students with a more personalized attention and support,” Miranda said.
The entire Spring Crossing neighborhood and the northern portion of the Breckenridge Forest neighborhood are currently zoned to Marshall Elementary and will be zoned to Smith Elementary in the upcoming year. Pieces of Clark Elementary will also be split off for Heritage and Cooper elementaries, and a portion of Burchett Elementary will go to Anderson Elementary.
Students living in the southern portion of the Cypress Station neighborhood—which is located near the intersection of FM 1960 and I-45—will be attending Meyer Elementary beginning in 2023-24. Previously, those students were zoned to Salyers Elementary.
Unlike the other boundary changes, the Cypress Station boundary change was made because of long bus commute times for students, Miranda said. The commute was taking between 15 minutes and 45 minutes due to traffic, but it will be cut to 10 minutes with the rezoning.
On April 11, the new boundaries were approved in a 6-1 vote with board President Justine Durant dissenting.
“When we embark upon boundary changes, I would like for us to have done it more holistically in looking at our disrupted, not-clear feeder patterns from our middle schools and to our high schools, and have done it all at one time,” Durant said.
Along with school capacity, district leaders also considered equity for students when planning the rezoning, Miranda said.
“One of the things from an equity standpoint is we wanted to make sure that we weren't going to disproportionately move students, especially economically disadvantaged students,” he said. “So the numbers are pretty balanced between the campuses.”
