Overcrowding Leads Parkway District to Shuffle Student Population

Chesterfield's Parkway School District will redraw attendance boundaries for a handful of schools on the north side by August, impacting about 475 students.

Crowding in northside elementary schools will be eased by shifting students in even numbers among the four schools. Central schools will absorb students from northside middle- and high school students.

The re-districting will move some 246 elementary age students. Another 230 middle- and high school students will be re-assigned, but they have the option to continue at northside schools through graduation.

These housing areas are impacted by the boundary changes:

• Old Farm Estates (and adjacent homes on northwest side of Amiot)
• Woodland Point
• Pheasant Run apartments
• Royal Pines condos
• Driftwood Place
• Pavilion (west of Bennington)
• West Pointe (west of Bennington)

In a unanimous vote, the Parkway Board of Education agreed to the mandatory reshuffling of primarily elementary school students, and the phase-in re-assignment for middle- and high school students.

Officials said changes were necessary to spread around overcrowding in some schools when there was a dearth of students in another.

"It had to happen," said Desi Kirchhofer, Parkway's secondary assistant superintendent who oversaw the re-districting process.

Most younger students would transfer to River Bend Elementary, from Craig, McKelvey and Ross elementary schools. River Bend will nearly double in size to about 412 students, but still have fewer students than the other three schools.

Officials said some schools were physically larger from building additions, and had more capacity.

"It balances the enrollment with schools of comparable size," Kirchhofer said of the shuffling. The changes were made in keeping with the notion of "neighborhood schools," he said.

The district got buy-in from families early in the process with four public hearings on the plan since September.

Affected families ultimately provided little resistance after the district agreed to provide a minimum of three years of transportation for older students who don't want to transfer.

How it works:

• 4th and 6th graders must attend new assigned school
• 5th graders may opt for "special assignment" to avoid changing schools
• no new tranfers will be accepted in schools at capacity
• grades 7-12 students will be assigned to new schools, but may opt out with "special assignment" request to remain at northside schools.

The school district expects to notify those in the changing districts within the next week.

"We all know that change is hard," said school board Director Dee Mogerman, who seconded the measure. Vice-President Beth Feldman made the motion in favor of the plan.

Parkway officials hope to hear decisions from families as early as possible in cases with the option to stay put. The district makes hiring decisions on teaching staff beginning in January.

Superintendent of Schools Keith Marty praised the leadership and 33-member committee that worked out the re-districting plan.

"I've been through this process before. This was the very, very best process," Marty said.