School Board Decides Final Boundary Changes

The Northville schools board of education voted 6-1 late Tuesday night to adopt Option 4 for middle school attendance boundary changes.

The board considered changing several elementary and middle school attendance boundaries for the 2013-14 school year because of increased enrollment. This final decision on attendance boundaries came after weeks of public forums and official data studies from consultant firm Plante Moran. 

"We're dealing with an old school district," said Ken Roth, board president, at Tuesday's board meeting. "These buildings were built 30, 40, 50 years ago. If we were dealing with a clean sheet of paper, we wouldn't locate our schools where they are now."

Option 4 will reassign a portion of the current Ridge Wood Elementary students from Meads Mill Middle School's attendance area to Hillside Middle School's attendance area. There are about 215 students in that attendance area that would transfer from Meads Mill to Hillside. 

The board discussed reasons for choosing this option, including that Meads Mill is a smaller building than Hillside and there is a greater opportunity for anticipated growth at Meads Mill.

Transferring students to Hillside is expected to alleviate some of that stress on Meads Mill's capacity:

The board also unanimously selected Option 1 for elementary school attendance boundary changes, which would reassign a portion of the current Ridge Wood Elementary attendance area to Winchester Elementary.

About 91 students would transfer from Ridge Wood to Winchester, dividing the Northville Hills subdivision. This option brings Winchester closer to 90 percent capacity; however, according to the data studies, the potential for growth is greater in the Ridge Wood area than the Winchester area:

Superintendent Mary Kay Gallagher said the district's next step is to send out information this week to each family affected detailing the boundary changes. This will include welcome letters from school principals, information on principal visits to the schools and information on the open enrollment process for parents who want to keep their children in the same school, she said.

Check back with Northville Patch on Wednesday afternoon for more details on the boundary changes, the board members' reasons for their decisions and reactions from parents of students affected by the changes.