11/4/2010
By DAVID CLOUSTON Salina Journal

Salinans with questions about the Salina School District's proposed school boundary plan will have the chance to ask them and to make comments to district representatives at a community meeting Monday.

The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Central High School auditorium.

Members of a community committee studying school boundaries have agreed to a plan that would send students from Heusner Elementary on to Lakewood Middle School and Central High School. Students attending Sunset Elementary would move in the upper grades to South Middle and South High schools.

The moves are designed to nearly equalize the number of low-income students in the secondary schools.

"I anticipate some questions about how we arrived at that," Superintendent Rob Winter said. "We'll frame those at the outset of the meeting, the process we went through to get to that."

The other aspect the plan is expected to provide is a framework for population growth within the district, where that growth is expected to occur and how best to manage it, Winter said.

The fastest growing areas of the city are on the east side and the southeast corner, he said.

"The difficulty is, we don't know exactly what that's going to look like and when," Winter said.

The meeting is expected to last about 1Ôªø1âÑ2 hours.

The proposed boundary lines within the city will be outlined on large poster-size maps; several copies will be available around the room.

"So folks will be able to get up close and take a look at them," Winter said. "And they'll be able to ask questions of board members, committee members and administrators."

Another issue remaining to be settled concerning the proposed boundaries is what exceptions there might be for children who already have an older brother or sister attending a different school.

If everyone were grandfathered in, Winter said, it could take a decade or more for the equalization sought by the plan to be fully realized.

"That's pretty tough to do," he said.

n Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.

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