Moses Lake schools districting by homes

MOSES LAKE —A new Moses Lake redistricting plan adopted will assign elementary students to a middle school based on their residence.

In previous years, students were placed at a middle school based on their enrollment at an elementary school, serving as a feeder school. The newly-built Sage Point Elementary School caused the district to reevaluate their strategy.

“We did not have a middle school large enough to continue the feeder school concept,” said Michelle Price, superintendent. “We set up many parent meetings to gather input on redistricting ideas. We might be able to go back to our old strategy when a new middle school is built.”

The district held community meetings from November to February to gather information needed to draft a redistricting proposal. At the meetings, school district members outlined the redistricting process and placed attendees in small-group input sessions.

“We had great community participation and got some good discussions going,” Price said.

District members provided attendees questions for debate. Questions included, what neighborhood areas should remain together and why, what traffic concerns do people have that may impact the safe and timely transportation of students to and from schools and are there residential/development trends in your area that may impact future school enrollment?

Participants agreed students should attend a school they are in walking distance of. They also wanted the district to consider heavy traffic flow experienced around some of the Moses Lake schools.

The possibility of a new middle school built around Harris Road and Stratford Road and it’s impact on a redistricting system was discussed. District members are waiting until the latest bond issue in 2012 to run another bond issue for a new middle school.

“We presented two different redistricting choices, Alternate A and Alternate B,” Price said.

Both choices change middle school attendance areas to geographic areas. The difference was that Alternate A counted the middle school not yet built in redistricting, meaning many middle school students would have to change schools next year.

“After weighing input from parents and community members, we decided the best choice was Alternate B,” Price said. “This alternate received overwhelming support at the second community meeting. Parents liked that this alternate was essentially the status quo and that not as many families are impacted.”

The new plan means students in most of the neighborhoods do not have to change schools.

“We had 25 participants at our last meeting and they were so pleased with the decision we came up with, they didn’t feel we needed any more meetings,” Price said.

Frontier Middle School is taking residents from Mae Valley (and west), Cove West, Laguna, Country Club, Westlake, Moses Pointe, Lower Peninsula, Peninsula, Guffin-Eccles, downtown Moses Lake, Knolls Vista, Sage Bay, Crestview, Upper Basin Homes, Lower Basin Homes, Skyline Drive, Harvest Manor, Longview Tracts and Stratford Estates.

Chief Moses Middle School is taking residents from East Montlake, Montlake, Desert Highlands, Pelican Point, Dune Lakes, Astro Acres, Pelican Meadows, Garden Heights, Eastlake, Cascade Valley, Larson Subdivision, McConihie and Stonecrest.

Redistricting changes take place next fall.

For more information, visit www.moseslakeschools.org/ or call 509-766-2650.