The Park Hill School District’s Board of Education is scheduled to vote on a redistricting plan this week, but not before some last minute changes.
The redistricting is being done in preparation for the opening of Angeline Washington Elementary, the district’s 12th elementary, in the fall of 2025. With 12 elementary schools and four middle schools, the district needs to establish new boundaries that create a “direct feeder” model in which three elementary schools will go to one middle school. Then, the balanced enrollments at Congress and Plaza middle schools will feed Park Hill High School and balanced enrollments at Lakeview and Walden middle schools will feed Park Hill South High School.
At the Nov. 14 Board of Education meeting, members of the Redistricting Advisory Team presented a recommended district boundary map to the board. In response to a request from the board at that meeting, the team reconvened on Dec. 3 to evaluate alternative elementary-to-middle-school feeder configurations. This additional review determined whether these alternatives could improve the recommended map based on the board’s five weighted criteria: enrollment balance, socio-economic balance, transportation distance, maintaining neighborhood subdivisions and minimizing school changes.
During the Dec. 3 meeting, the Redistricting Advisory Team conducted a review of the recommended map and two alternative configurations. Using the board’s criteria as a guide, each team member reassessed the options to ensure alignment with the district’s priorities. The team amended its initial recommendation.
While the initial recommendation for the Park Hill South area established the following elementary-to-middle-school feeder system:
Lakeview Middle School: English Landing, Graden and Line Creek
Walden Middle School: Angeline Washington, Southeast and Union Chapel
The revised recommendation modifies the feeder system as follows:
Lakeview Middle School: English Landing, Graden and Union Chapel
Walden Middle School: Angeline Washington, Line Creek and Southeast
This revised configuration scored higher on four of the board’s criteria: enrollment balance, socio-economic balance, transportation distance and minimizing the number of students transitioning to a different middle school. No elementary or high school lines are changed from the original recommendation.
Additional considerations for grandfathering students were also determined. Park Hill staff is recommending the Board of Education allow 2025-2026 5th graders and 8th graders to remain at their 2024-2025 schools. In addition, 2024-2025 6th-12th grade students currently attending a secondary school within the Park Hill South attendance area and redistricted to a secondary school in the Park Hill High School attendance area will be allowed to remain at their current secondary school in the Park Hill South attendance area through graduation.
District transportation will not be provided to students qualifying for grandfathering, and the grandfathering provision does not apply to siblings or other household members.
The board will review this final redistricting scenario and grandfathering recommendation at its Dec. 12 Board of Education meeting.