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Frequently asked questions: Redrawing JC Schools boundary line

By the News Tribune

As part of the boundary line adjustment, the JC Schools Boundary Committee issued a feedback survey for its original four scenarios that generated more than 1,300 responses. While reviewing the comments, the News Tribune made a note of points of confusion and questions that were repeated in the responses. Those questions and topics have been condensed into a list of “Frequently Asked Questions” here.

The News Tribune sat down with Jefferson City Public Schools Superintendent Larry Linthacum to discuss the answers to these questions. The answers to this Q&A have been edited for clarity and length.

Q: Why are the boundary lines being redrawn now?

A: When we passed J+C, and we thank our community for supporting that, to have two high schools — build Capital City High School, renovate Jeff City and renovate Nichols Career Center — the board was committed to reviewing and examining the enrollment data every three years to determine if any adjustments were needed. So here we are, and that’s why we’re reviewing and assessing.

Q: Why can’t the boundaries be left as they are?

A: That is an option. We won’t be recommending that, but that is an option. We just believe, back from ’93 (the year of the opening of the two middle schools), to have similar enrollment and similar poverty between both middle schools and both high schools … to keep them similar … with overcrowding issues at some of our buildings, to address that.

Q: What is the role of the consultant in the process and in the boundary committee meetings?

A: It’s what they do for a living, and they facilitate the process. They’ve got a lot of experience, and I think they would say every situation has been different across America in rural areas and urban areas and everywhere in between. They bring the expertise and the capabilities to facilitate, knowing the emotions that go along with it but also the goals of our district, and that’s to provide a quality education and to ensure all of our students graduate college, career and life ready, and the goals that they set — our board — for the enrollments to be similar and for the poverty rates to be similar. They’re going to come up with scenarios to help us do that.

Q: What’s the process of a boundary committee meeting? What do they talk about in a committee meeting?

A: The district hired Cooperative Strategies — our board hired them. They’re the ones that led and facilitated Columbia’s redrawing of their boundary lines that they do on a more regular basis. … They facilitated the process, and the goal was to have one representative from each elementary feeder school, and they would review the district data and assessments and look at a variety of scenarios and attempt to align with the priorities the district had set forth.

Q: Who makes the decisions? Do board members have input in those meetings?

A: At those meetings, there’s some (board members) that have attended, but the committee will be making a recommendation, and we’ll be making a recommendation to our board. So ultimately our board will be making a final … decision on that as our Board of Education.

I know there was some (board

members) that have just attended, that have come to just kind of get a feel. … But we’ve posted those meetings so folks were aware, not as participants, but as just viewing. So we always value our board inputs, and we’ll have that as an agenda item here at our January board meeting, and we’ll be discussing that further.

Q: What factors have to be considered when drawing boundary lines? Does socioeconomic status (SES) have to be considered? Do demographics have to be considered?

A: Our board policy JC dictates which factors should be considered (see below) when adjusting those.

The following factors are listed in policy JC:

1. Minimize disruption of student’s established learning programs. 2. Keep siblings in the same elementary, middle or high school, whenever possible.

3. Provide an overall balance of student enrollment related to facility size, taking into account future growth patterns.

4. Provide a reasonably balanced socio-economic relationship in all schools.

5. Provide the most cost-effective, efficient and feasible means for student transportation, taking into account travel time.

6. Keep neighborhoods in the same attendance area, whenever possible.

7. Maintain patterns so that elementary/middle/high school attendance areas stay with the same cohort as they progress through school levels, whenever possible.

8. Follow natural boundaries and utilize existing physical boundaries such as major roadways or other geographical features to delineate boundaries, whenever possible.

The district will consider two factors to help determine proposed attendance area adjustments or student transfers and what process to use:

1. The number of schools involved in the proposed change. 2. The number of students and people impacted by the proposed change.

Q: When do these boundary line changes, if agreed upon by the board, take effect?

A: Potentially this fall.

Q: The boundary lines are reviewed every year; are they redrawn every year?

A: Possibly. This will be the first since we opened up Capital City High School. We did do some tweaks, I think I shared with everyone, when we opened that. So potentially. The policy doesn’t say they have to be changed every three years. The policy says we’ll review, assess and evaluate every three years. So potentially. It’s one of those you want to do long enough, I believe, long enough to let the dust settle.

We’re evaluating and assessing, just to monitor the progress, going back to the enrollment and the poverty between the schools, and the demographics to assess that on a regular basis.

Q: Would adding a new middle or elementary school fix the problems that the boundary line changes are trying to solve?

A: It could in some areas, but we do think building a new school would require a bond issue, and we’re not doing that at this time.

Q: Is this going to create a burden on the transportation system?

A: We have a shortage of bus drivers right now. We do. We don’t anticipate this increasing that. I’m not going to tell you that this will fix all of our shortages because it won’t. But we still have shortages, and we have combined some routes to accommodate the shortages, and we’ll continue as we partner with First Student, as we contract with them, that they’ll be creative in how we can be more efficient, more effective. But we will potentially still have a shortage of drivers, potentially, even after these boundary line changes.

Q: What is the difference between socioeconomic status and free and reduced lunch?

A: Before the pandemic, only students whose household income met certain thresholds were eligible to receive free and reduced meals through the national school lunch program. These can be found on USDA’s website. We use the free and reduced meals information to measure the socioeconomic status within a school.

It is this year a little bit skewed because of, with the pandemic and the free and reduced lunches that they’re not required to fill out a form (to receive them). We don’t believe that it’s completely accurate, just because there are folks that have not filled out a form but they still get a free breakfast and a free lunch. We look at what we have with the enrollments that have been turned in, plus look at what was the previous year and years past and trends and so forth. The free and reduced (lunch) most schools use as that socioeconomic status.

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2022-01-16T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-16T08:00:00.0000000Z

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