The committee will officially present these recommendations to the board in January, said Chris McCord, assistant superintendent for operations.
As of August 2022, nearly every school in the Grand Oaks feeder zone was over capacity, according to the district. Cox Intermediate School, the only school not yet at capacity, is 92% full, according to the district. Overall, the Grand Oaks feeder is at 112% over capacity, according to meeting documents.
“We’ve said multiple times, when a school is at 90% of capacity, it does feel full. Cox Intermediate is our facility in the Grand Oaks feeder that is under capacity, at least for the moment,” McCord said.
The scenario for zoning of Christopher J. Hines Elementary would see 352 students moved from Broadway Elementary to Snyder Elementary and would move 742 students from Snyder Elementary to Hines Elementary. Two undeveloped areas in the Birnham Woods Elementary zone would also be included in the Hines Elementary zone.
In total, 1,094 students would be impacted by the zoning adjustments, according to information at the meeting.
“We realize those are real kids with real families, we take everything we do seriously. They are not numbers,” McCord said.
If adopted, the scenario would put Snyder at 81%, Hines at 78%, Bradley at 101%, Broadway at 103% and Birnham Woods at 103% capacities.
The committee will also recommend rezoning of Clark and Cox Intermediate schools, moving the Legends Run neighborhood west of Birnham Woods Drive and Legends Trace neighborhoods into the Cox Intermediate zone. In total, 199 students would be impacted by this rezoning, according to the district.
“I believe [199] is the smallest or right at the smallest number of kids that we would transition of all the scenarios we looked at that would accomplish what needed to get done,” McCord said.
The adjustment would put Clark Intermediate at 91% capacity and Cox Intermediate at 116% capacity, which McCord said would be necessary to account for expected growth in the coming years.
“We would ... be flip flopping the numbers in anticipation of the growth that’s coming in [zoning] area 57 and all throughout the east, north and south sides of the Grand Oaks feeder zones,” he said.
The board will vote to approve or reject the two scenarios at its next regular meeting on Jan.17.
