St. Charles District 303 reveals potential school attendance boundary changes
Hundreds turned out in person and virtually this week for information sessions on St. Charles Unit School District 303's proposed enrollment zone changes.
The school board is considering major changes in the district to address overcrowding in elementary schools. After voting to reorganize elementary school facilities in July, the next step is changing the schools' attendance boundaries.
Beginning in the 2024-25 school year, Lincoln Elementary school will close to house transition programming and staff offices, and Fox Ridge Early Childhood Center will become an elementary school.
District 303 board members will vote to finalize the boundary changes at their Feb. 12, 2024, meeting. Those changes are expected to be implemented for the 2024-2025 school year.
In July, the district hired RSP and Associates to conduct a boundary analysis and develop a plan to address overcrowding. At an information session Tuesday, an RSP representative presented proposed changes to the enrollment zones of district schools and began collecting community feedback.
RSP & Associates CEO Robert Schwarz presented two possible scenarios - the first would adjust the enrollment zones of every school in the district, and the second would change the enrollment zones for elementary and middle schools, but would not high schools.
Under the first scenario, the Richmond Elementary School boundary would stop at Dean Street and extend east to Geneva Road, and Wasco Elementary School would extend north of Silver Glen Road.
Under the second scenario, Richmond's boundary would extend north of Dean Street, Munhall Elementary School would extend past Geneva Road, and Wasco would extend to Denker Road.
Schwarz said the goal is to better distribute students so that each school is between 85-90% capacity, allowing space for flexibility and future growth. The presentation also detailed how the proposed scenarios would change which elementary schools feed into which middle school and which middle schools feed into which high schools.
The full presentation, which includes detailed maps of the proposed enrollment zone changes, is available for viewing on the district website, https://district.d303.org.
A public survey for residents to provide feedback on the proposed scenarios opened Tuesday and will close on Dec 10. Schwarz said they intend to make changes to the proposed scenarios based on community responses.
"Don't be fearful that what I'm showing you tonight will be approved by the board at their next meeting," Schwarz said. "That is not happening. I fully expect that there should be changes made based off the responses from this survey."