Iowa City School Board Close to Consensus on Borlaug Boundaries

So Draft 4c it is.

Maybe.

After holding another public forum on the redistricting that will be caused in 2012-2013 by the opening of Norman Borlaug Elementary School off of Camp Cardinal Road, the four board members present for Tuesday night's Iowa City School Board meeting finally spoke up about the way they are leaning when it comes to the boundary change

The consensus: all four school board members said they at least partially support Draft 4c, a slightly modified version of Draft 4b, a plan which was presented at a public hearing.

No vote was taken, due to the fact that the board decided that they needed the full seven members present for a decision of this importance. However, the board members that were there indicated that a vote likely would take place at the June 28 board meeting.

The two major differences between the Drafts 4b and 4c is that approximately 50 students from the Shannon Drive area will be moved from Weber Elementary School to Borlaug, and 15 students near Melrose Avenue who are now attending Roosevelt would be shifted from Borlaug to Horn Elementary, according to Assistant Superintendent Ann Feldmann. This would effectively use Melrose Avenue and Highway 218 as boundary lines for the elementaries.

During the meeting, Superintendent Steve Murley told the board that he expects the administrative recommendation to the board to come on the 28th as well, and that it will likely resemble the most recent drafts.

"We are down to small changes now," Murley. "We have met the needs of most of the community members." 

The board members all then voiced their support for 4c, although some still had some reservations about it.

Board member Toni Cilek said whatever the decision, she thought it would be important for the board to make it by the June 28 meeting, before fellow board member Mike Cooper leaves the board, and so as to not drag the process out any longer with constant tweaking.

"We're not going to make everyone happy," Cilek said. "We need at some point to step back and do what is best for the whole district."

Board member Tuyet Dorau said she is mostly in favor of 4c, but is troubled by the fact that the Pheasant Ridge neighborhood is being sent to Weber instead of Borlaug, because this will make it an "island" isolated from its contiguous neighborhoods.

"I've always been in favor of having more contiguous geographical regions for our boundaries so they make more sense," Dorau said. "I don't like seeing these little islands."

The Pheasant Ridge residents, many of them Sudanese immigrants, have also expressed concern about their children, who now attend the soon to be closed Roosevelt Elementary School, being separated from their teachers who are going to Borlaug. Dorau said she hopes to learn more about their concerns at a meeting at the Pheasant Ridge Neighborhood Center on Thursday night.

Board member Sarah Swisher said that she also supports 4c, but hopes that moves like the one done with Pheasant Ridge weren't done only to balance a few percent points of free and reduced lunch rates between the schools.

The plan currently balances Weber, Borlaug and Horn Elementary Schools at approximately 30 percent free and reduced lunch rates. Swisher said such balance isn't necessarily as important as it might appear, or at least not enough to rate over other factors.

"If [the moves] were made to balance a few points in free and reduced lunch, that is something I wouldn't be very comfortable with," Swisher said.

Superintendent Murley explained that the Pheasant Ridge students were being moved to Borlaug because they were opposites of the demographic makeup of the students being moved elsewhere to make room for Borlaug to open. He argued that disrupting this balance would lead to a greater inequity down the road.

"If you move students in that don't mirror those demographics you can see drastic changes in factors that we have decided are very important to the decision making process," Murley said.

Mike Cooper, who said he hopes to have the chance to vote on the boundary change at his final meeting, agreed that a redistricting change shouldn't be made just to make the demographics look slightly better. On the other hand, he said if the schools don't have a proper balance of socioeconomic status now, pockets of influence and proverty could grow over time.

"What I wouldn't want to do is create a situation where we have at [Wickam Elementary School], where they have a 3 percent free and reduced lunch," Cooper said.

Cooper said that it wasn't the perfect scenario, but Draft 4c at least divides the boundaries into straight lines that seem to make sense.

Hills resident Julie Van Dyke argued that the plan should be changed to allow the residents of Lakeridge Mobile Home Court to attend Hills Elementary School instead of Mark Twain Elementary School, undoing a previous redistricting move.

Van Dyke said that many of the residents of this area have told her that they want to go to Hills Elementary, and as many as 35 children from this area transferred to the Highland Community School District rather than to go to Twain. She said that this move would potentially save Hills Elementary, after a viability study linked Hills Elementary School's low attendance to high per student cost, making some board members discuss whether or not the school is viable.

"You can save a school with one simple move," Van Dyke said. "That's not a small change, that's not insignificant,"

Board member Sarah Swisher replied that while she understood the concern of Hills citizens, the board is considering Borlaug boundaries independent of any decision regarding Hills.

"I wouldn't want to say how I feel toward the plan tonight would affect the city of Hills," Swisher said. "There's just more work to do here." 

The viability study and the future of Hills Elementary School will be discussed by board members at a facilities meeting scheduled for June 27.