Post by title1parent on Feb 26, 2008 6:55:31 GMT -5
Oswego school boundaries receive board's approval
February 26, 2008
By HEATHER GILLERS hgillers@scn1.com
OSWEGO -- The School Board signed off on a new set of boundaries Monday that will affect roughly 300 students over the next school year.
The approved plan will expand two elementary schools, keep two newly built schools shuttered and allow students in the Lakewood Creek area to stay put.
"After listening to the taxpayers, I can tell you they don't want (children) to move," Board Member Andrea Schweda said as officials discussed whether to relocate the Lakewood Creek group in anticipation of future construction.
"I think they deserve to get what they want for awhile until we know how to make it the most comfortable for them."
Over the past several months, a committee of 30 parents and school staff members drafted and redrafted the boundary blueprint in order to accommodate parent and community concerns. Last week District Superintendent David Behlow added his recommendations.
The newly approved boundary blueprint does not address a proposal to build a middle school on the west side of Oswego as early as next year, although that plan remains under discussion. Officials reshuffle school attendance boundaries regularly to accommodate new students in the rapidly growing district.
Shifting students
Under the new boundaries, the district will build classrooms onto Churchill and Fox Chase elementary schools to accommodate growth at the elementary school level.
The blueprint allows Traughber Junior High School students to continue to attend Oswego High School. School officials had earlier alarmed teens and their parents by suggesting splitting the student body into two groups that would attend separate high schools.
Some students will switch between Thompson and Traughber junior high schools, however, in order to attend buildings closer to their homes.
Also, incoming freshmen from some subdivisions -- including Mill Race Creek, the Ponds at Mill Race Creek, Victoria Meadows and Winding Waters -- will attend Oswego High School to relieve overcrowding at Oswego East. Students with siblings at Oswego East, however, would be allowed to attend school with their brothers or sisters.
Two schools won't open
Oswego officials had to reshuffle their plans on where to open schools and place students after a flagging housing market lead to a significantly smaller increase in enrollment than the district had predicted.
Under the new boundary blueprint, Hunt Club Elementary School and Murphy Junior High School will remain closed for the 2008-09 school year. Both schools were recently completed with $450 million in school construction revenues taxpayers approved in a 2006 referendum. According to board projections, it would have cost a combined $3.5 million to open both schools.
Lakewood Creek group
Board members rejected a proposal to relocate students living in the area of the Lakewood Creek subdivision, arguing that the plan was based on projections too murky to justify moving children around.
The roughly 375 students -- who now attend Plank Junior High School and Oswego East High School -- could eventually go to the junior high school the district hopes to build on the west side of Oswego. John Graff, one of two board members who voted to move some of those students to Traughber Junior High School, worried that "Plank is going to be busting at the seams next year at 1,200 (students)."
But the rest of the board voted down a move for either junior high or high school students in that area after board members pointed out that the district has yet to purchase land for the west side school.
"This board has hurried into other decisions like how many buildings to build and how fast ... and we're going to sit with two empty buildings now," said Board Member Andrew Wood.
"I don't see a problem with slowing down what parts of this we can slow down in the name of making better decisions."
February 26, 2008
By HEATHER GILLERS hgillers@scn1.com
OSWEGO -- The School Board signed off on a new set of boundaries Monday that will affect roughly 300 students over the next school year.
The approved plan will expand two elementary schools, keep two newly built schools shuttered and allow students in the Lakewood Creek area to stay put.
"After listening to the taxpayers, I can tell you they don't want (children) to move," Board Member Andrea Schweda said as officials discussed whether to relocate the Lakewood Creek group in anticipation of future construction.
"I think they deserve to get what they want for awhile until we know how to make it the most comfortable for them."
Over the past several months, a committee of 30 parents and school staff members drafted and redrafted the boundary blueprint in order to accommodate parent and community concerns. Last week District Superintendent David Behlow added his recommendations.
The newly approved boundary blueprint does not address a proposal to build a middle school on the west side of Oswego as early as next year, although that plan remains under discussion. Officials reshuffle school attendance boundaries regularly to accommodate new students in the rapidly growing district.
Shifting students
Under the new boundaries, the district will build classrooms onto Churchill and Fox Chase elementary schools to accommodate growth at the elementary school level.
The blueprint allows Traughber Junior High School students to continue to attend Oswego High School. School officials had earlier alarmed teens and their parents by suggesting splitting the student body into two groups that would attend separate high schools.
Some students will switch between Thompson and Traughber junior high schools, however, in order to attend buildings closer to their homes.
Also, incoming freshmen from some subdivisions -- including Mill Race Creek, the Ponds at Mill Race Creek, Victoria Meadows and Winding Waters -- will attend Oswego High School to relieve overcrowding at Oswego East. Students with siblings at Oswego East, however, would be allowed to attend school with their brothers or sisters.
Two schools won't open
Oswego officials had to reshuffle their plans on where to open schools and place students after a flagging housing market lead to a significantly smaller increase in enrollment than the district had predicted.
Under the new boundary blueprint, Hunt Club Elementary School and Murphy Junior High School will remain closed for the 2008-09 school year. Both schools were recently completed with $450 million in school construction revenues taxpayers approved in a 2006 referendum. According to board projections, it would have cost a combined $3.5 million to open both schools.
Lakewood Creek group
Board members rejected a proposal to relocate students living in the area of the Lakewood Creek subdivision, arguing that the plan was based on projections too murky to justify moving children around.
The roughly 375 students -- who now attend Plank Junior High School and Oswego East High School -- could eventually go to the junior high school the district hopes to build on the west side of Oswego. John Graff, one of two board members who voted to move some of those students to Traughber Junior High School, worried that "Plank is going to be busting at the seams next year at 1,200 (students)."
But the rest of the board voted down a move for either junior high or high school students in that area after board members pointed out that the district has yet to purchase land for the west side school.
"This board has hurried into other decisions like how many buildings to build and how fast ... and we're going to sit with two empty buildings now," said Board Member Andrew Wood.
"I don't see a problem with slowing down what parts of this we can slow down in the name of making better decisions."