A Line Needs To Be Drawn
Hearing Planned On Changing City’s Middle School Boundaries
Posted: November 23, 2012
HARRISONBURG — Changing the middle school boundary, which determines whether Harrisonburg students will attend Thomas Harrison or Skyline middle school, is an inevitable next step for the City School Board, Chairwoman Kerri Wilson said this week.
But the board still wants input from the change’s biggest stakeholders.
“It needs to be done, but we want to have input from parents,” Wilson said.
During a work session Tuesday, the board set a Jan. 15 public hearing date on a proposal to shuffle more students from two city elementary schools to Skyline Middle School, instead of the overcrowded Thomas Harrison Middle School.
The proposal, which would direct rising fifth-graders from Waterman and Spotswood elementary schools who live on certain streets to Skyline, was presented at a board meeting earlier this month.
The Skyline boundary would change to take in a chunk of streets, mainly off East Washington Street in the city’s Northeast Neighborhood.
All streets that would be affected by the proposed boundary move are available in a document at http://boarddocs.com/vsba/hcsva/Board.nsf/Public, under the Nov. 6 meeting.
The change could potentially affect about 50 to 60 students each year for the next four years, according to the presentation, but Wilson said the boundary’s location is subject to change.
“What the variable is, is where the actual lines end up,” she said.
Moving the boundary would help ease one of the division’s problems when it comes to space: Thomas Harrison has been deemed as being above “effective capacity.”
Burgeoning enrollment in the division — between September 2011 and September 2012, enrollment grew by 198 students to 5,211 — also has cramped several elementary schools and may lead to students outgrowing Harrisonburg High School in the near future.
The board has examined several possible solutions to the problem, and voted earlier this month to ask for permission from Harrisonburg City Council to use the city-owned Lucy F. Simms Continuing Education Center to house prekindergarten programs.
A formal approval or consensus to move forward with the plan will happen at a future meeting, Wilson said.
Contact Emily Sharrer at 574-6286 or esharrer@dnronline.com
But the board still wants input from the change’s biggest stakeholders.
“It needs to be done, but we want to have input from parents,” Wilson said.
During a work session Tuesday, the board set a Jan. 15 public hearing date on a proposal to shuffle more students from two city elementary schools to Skyline Middle School, instead of the overcrowded Thomas Harrison Middle School.
The proposal, which would direct rising fifth-graders from Waterman and Spotswood elementary schools who live on certain streets to Skyline, was presented at a board meeting earlier this month.
The Skyline boundary would change to take in a chunk of streets, mainly off East Washington Street in the city’s Northeast Neighborhood.
All streets that would be affected by the proposed boundary move are available in a document at http://boarddocs.com/vsba/hcsva/Board.nsf/Public, under the Nov. 6 meeting.
The change could potentially affect about 50 to 60 students each year for the next four years, according to the presentation, but Wilson said the boundary’s location is subject to change.
“What the variable is, is where the actual lines end up,” she said.
Moving the boundary would help ease one of the division’s problems when it comes to space: Thomas Harrison has been deemed as being above “effective capacity.”
Burgeoning enrollment in the division — between September 2011 and September 2012, enrollment grew by 198 students to 5,211 — also has cramped several elementary schools and may lead to students outgrowing Harrisonburg High School in the near future.
The board has examined several possible solutions to the problem, and voted earlier this month to ask for permission from Harrisonburg City Council to use the city-owned Lucy F. Simms Continuing Education Center to house prekindergarten programs.
A formal approval or consensus to move forward with the plan will happen at a future meeting, Wilson said.
Contact Emily Sharrer at 574-6286 or esharrer@dnronline.com