School Board Seeks Input On Rezoning Plans A and B

The Carroll School Board decided Monday to present two attendance rezoning options during a series of public meetings in January and early February. Trustees have been studying various options for balancing enrollment and effectively utilizing building space across the district. The rezoning is necessary to prepare for the opening of a new elementary school and a new middle school in August.

The Board directed the Administration to present Plan A and Plan B to the public and to collect feedback for a one-month period beginning Friday, January 14 and ending at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, February 14. Maps and a detailed explanation of each proposal are available on the district’s Attendance Rezoning 2011. website. Daytime meetings are being held at various campuses, with evening meetings tentatively scheduled on Wednesday, January 26; Monday, January 31; Thursday, February 3 and Thursday, February 10. All meeting times and locations are available on the district’s website.

Parents, staff and taxpayers are being asked to submit their feedback in written form. Each Trustee will have the opportunity to read the comments before a final decision February 21. The 2009 Bond Program approved by voters included a new fifth elementary school located on North White’s Chapel Boulevard just north of Dove Road. This yet-to-be-named elementary will become home to current Durham Elementary students, as well as about 100 students currently zoned to an overcrowded Johnson Elementary campus.

The district will also open a new middle school on Kirkwood Boulevard. Under the Plan A scenario, the middle school zone would change slightly because of changes to give Myers Meadow, Cross Timber Hills, Camden Park, Palomar Estates and Randol Mill Estates a pure feeder system in grades 5-8. Those neighborhoods have been a part of a split configuration for many years, attending Carroll Elementary then splitting from classmates to attend Durham Intermediate and Carroll Middle School. Under Plan A, these four neighborhoods would attend Carroll Elementary, Eubanks Intermediate and Dawson Middle School. Plan B keeps the split configuration for those four neighborhoods.

Other changes represented in both Plan A and Plan B include moving undeveloped land in Old Union Elementary to Rockenbaugh Elementary zone before homes are built on the land. Wyndsor Creek I residents who exit their neighborhood onto Byron Nelson Parkway would be rezoned from Old Union Elementary to Rockenbaugh Elementary in both plans.

School officials say most of the rezoning changes reflect new zones between the new elementary and Johnson in the northern zone, but the changes to the OUES and RES zones are the Board’s attempt to add students at RES over the next five years. That campus is expected to drop below 400 students according to the professional demographer.

Although no final decisions have been made, Trustees have discussed and agreed to offer in-district transfer options to those students who are rezoned and their siblings. Preferences would be given to exit grade level students and their siblings and then to other students affected by the rezoning. Transportation is not provided under any transfer scenario, but both plans ought to create capacity for transfer students at most campuses, grade levels.

Visit the district’s website for more information about Carroll ISD’s Attendance Rezoning 2011.