Public sessions set on elementary boundaries

The public will get two final chances to comment on proposed elementary school boundary changes in Rio Rancho beginning tonight.

The district’s boundary committee has scheduled public input sessions at Vista Grande Elementary, 7001 Chayote Rd. NE at 5:30 p.m. tonight and at 10 a.m. Friday.

The school board formalized 2008-09 boundaries for seven of the district’s 10 elementary schools at its meeting Monday night. Still in play are possible changes for Vista Grande, the new Sandia Vista and Enchanted Hills elementaries.

Vista Grande is the northernmost of the three schools, with Sandia Vista sandwiched between Enchanted Hills. The district generally likes to open new schools below capacity to give staff and students time to work out the kinks in a new school and to leave it some room to increase enrollment before having to change its boundaries.

But the consensus of the board was that it wants to further reduce the enrollment at Vista Grande, which has been overcrowded almost from the day it opened and still has many classes in portable buildings.

When the boundary committee made its initial recommendations two weeks ago, the district had high hopes of gaining capital outlay funds from the state to add to Vista Grande. But now with the political battle over bricks and mortar projects between Gov. Bill Richardson and the legislature, the status of that funding is uncertain at best.

Under the committee’s proposal, estimated enrollment at Vista Grande would be about 770 students (down from about 920 currently).  The school was built to house 600 students.

Any change in the boundary committee’s recommendations would most likely require moving more students who now attend the school. In asking for additional input, the board asked the committee to explain the scenarios and give parents the opportunity to express their opinions.

Any changes may have the added benefit of eliminating the committee’s recommendation to move students in the Rivers Edge III area from Enchanted Hills Elementary to Sandia Vista. Many parents from the area said at the last public forums they considered all of Rivers Edge as one large neighborhood and they wanted their children to remain with students from Rivers Edge I ad Rivers Edge II at Enchanted Hills.

If the committee agrees to move enough students from Vista Grande to Sandia Vista, it may decide the new school shouldn’t take on the Rivers Edge III students from Enchanted Hills

Citizens who cannot attend the sessions may comment in writing in one of three ways:

• E-mail comments to district@rrdo.rrps.k12.nm.us. .

• Write to the Rio Rancho Public Schools District Office, 500 Laser Rd. NE, Rio Rancho, NM, 87124.  Please include the word “boundaries” on the envelope.

• Fill out one of the comment forms available at all schools and at the district office.

All of the public comment is shared with school board members before they meet to make boundary decisions. The board has scheduled a special meeting on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. to review the boundary options.

Here is a summary of the recommendations already approved by the board, generally identified as Option 15C:

• Establishment of attendance boundaries for Cielo Azul Elementary School

• Reuniting the North Hills neighborhood north of Kings Rd. and Pine St. at Colinas del Norte Elementary.  Some North Hills students had been assigned to Stapleton.

• Moving the northern end of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School attendance area north of Abrazo Rd. from MLK to Stapleton Elementary, to provide enrollment relief at MLK

At the middle school level, the board adopted a recommended change to move students on the west side of the district, west of 10th St. between 28th Ave. and Northern Blvd., to Eagle Ridge Middle School.  These students were being bused to Mountain View Middle School, and the move will relieve enrollment at Mountain View and allow the students in the affected area to attend a school located much closer to their neighborhood.

The board did not approve the move of the northern end of the Lincoln MS zone north of Abrazo Rd. to Eagle Ridge.  The move had been suggested to maintain feeder alignment for students transferred from MLK to Stapleton in the elementary process.

Parents in the area indicated they would rather remain at Lincoln and the board decided not to make the change at this time.  The district will undertake a major review of middle school boundaries in the fall for changes that would take effect in the 2009-10 school year.