CPS explains redistricting guidelines and principles

  According to Columbia Public Schools spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark, tomorrow night, the Columbia Board of Education will hear from their consultant that they’ve hired to go over attendance area changes.

The changes will go into effect in August 2020, when a new middle school will open on Sinclair Road in the districts efforts to help with overcrowding in some of their middle schools and high schools.

“Tomorrow night will be an opportunity for the Board of Education as well as the community to hear what the process is going to look like, what the timeline is, what will be the opportunities for community feedback,” Baumstark said.

Baumstark said the emergence of the new middle school is a huge undertaking and a lot of work for a community volunteer, so they’ve hired an outside third party to help them make the decisions.

She said they hope to have a recommendation based off their consultant’s work and what the community says by April or May of next year for the board to consider.

However, among the community, it has become a controversial issue, like for mom Jennifer Roberts, who started a Start2Finish company in her efforts raise awareness and to let students stay.

“It’s too much to ask of a high schooler to make that adjustment. To make that adjustment midway through as they’re looking for colleges, they’re visiting schools, they have so much on their mind right then,” Roberts said.

Baumstark said the new school is necessary for the betterment of education.

“We will give the community almost an entire year to adjust for the changes,” Baumstark said.

Roberts said she already has some neighbors looking to move, but she plans to fight to stop the changes.

“We’re not talking to a realtor, but many of our neighbors have. For sale signs have gone up already in our neighborhood in anticipation of this,” Roberts said.

Baumstark said that no matter what, this is a hard time. But they made similar changes when Battle High arrived back in 2013, and it all worked out, she said.

“It’s an emotional and painful process that we go through, but the outcome at the end will be what is best for the school district and best for its student,” Baumstark said.

Roberts said her daughter will be just entering junior year when the new school opens, and she is concerned it could affect her daughter both academically and emotionally, along with other students that could have to make a move in the middle of their high school years.

“That’s what they’re talking about doing, is making these kids move right in the middle of their high school years, and it’s too much to ask of my kid or any kid,” Roberts said.

Baumstark said they are going to work with the community and they will be incorporating what is best for the district overall.

According to the agenda, the process does have “guiding principles”: preparing for future neighborhood growth, walkable and bikeable schools, considering time spent on the bus and considering a transfer policy allowing eighth-graders to remain at their previous school.

“One of the things the Board of Education has already done is approved its guiding principles, what is the framework they want the consultant to work within and one of those things is incorporating a grandfather policy for our senior students as well as our 8th grade students,” Baumstark said.

Baumstark said they will have open houses, surveys and focus groups to weigh in on the best decision for the district.

According to the agenda, there will be several focus groups that will provide feedback to help refine options.

Then the options will be presented to the community at large for feedback.

The consultant group will then bring together the feedback findings and present it to the school board.

Roberts said she hopes the school board will incorporate the attendance changes more slowly.

“They keep saying they have to do what’s right for the district. The kids are the district,” Roberts said.

The district hired Scott Leopold of Cooperative Strategies, LLC to help them lead this process. The meeting will start Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the district of administration building on West Worley Street.