Maize school district approves attendance boundaries

Maize school leaders unanimously approved the district’s first attendance boundaries Monday, finalizing their new placement policy and ending a four-year debate over how students are assigned to secondary schools.

“When you have a boundary line, you avoid those internal conflicts that existed before,” said superintendent Chad Higgins.

“As schools and families and kids were trying to draw others to their school, it was really difficult to provide one thing for one school and not for another. Now those things are set, and there’s not going to be the same competitiveness, that perceived recruiting or ill will.”

The vote comes after about four years of uncertainty and debate over student placement in Maize, a district of about 7,300 students that includes parts of northwest Wichita.

Beginning next school year, students will be assigned to one of the district’s two middle and high schools based on their primary address.

According to the boundary map, which Higgins presented last month, households in a southeast portion of the district will be assigned to Maize South Middle School and Maize South High and the remainder of the district to Maize Middle School and Maize High.

A transition plan calls for all middle and high school students to return to their current schools, regardless of their boundary assignment, until they advance to high school or graduate. All current middle-school students will be allowed to request a high school during their eighth-grade year.

This year’s fifth-graders will attend boundary-assigned middle schools next year – except for some “legacy exemptions.” Younger siblings of current middle- and high-school students have 4:30 p.m. Dec. 14 to declare whether they wish to attend the older sibling’s school rather than their boundary-assigned feeder-pattern school.

If they opt out of their boundary-assigned school, they will not be allowed to change that request prior to entering middle or high school. In addition, students granted the exemption would be required to provide their own transportation.

District officials said they will communicate with families in coming weeks about their options under the new policy, particularly exemptions to boundary assignments during the transition phase. Families should receive packets in the mail soon, they said.

Higgins, the superintendent, has called the struggle over placement “a gorilla on the back” of school leaders and families. The new policy and transition plan were met with some resistance, but boundaries will be better for the district in the long run, Higgins said.

Shortly after taking the helm last year, Higgins pledged to change the placement policy, which he said had bred an atmosphere of informal recruiting, conflict, anxiety and hard feelings.

Higgins said some residents expressed concern about diversity and socioeconomic balance at the district’s two high schools, particularly since most of the district’s higher-income neighborhoods lie within the new Maize South boundary.

He said the new map seeks to better balance various demographics across the district.

Currently, about 20 percent of Maize High School students are considered economically disadvantaged, Higgins said; only 8 percent of Maize South High students are economically disadvantaged.

Across all grades, though, the boundary that feeds into Maize Middle and Maize High is about 25 percent economically disadvantaged, Higgins said; across the Maize South boundary, about 17 percent of students are economically disadvantaged.

“Staff and parents want similar environments, and that’s understandable,” Higgins said Tuesday.

“If we have significant differences in our schools or students with higher needs, that should be addressed,” he said. “If we need a different set of staff because of that difference, then it should be put together.”

People with questions about the new policy or boundaries are encouraged to check the district’s question-and-answer page at www.usd266.com/studentplacement, call 316-722-0614, or e-mail placement@usd266.com.

This story was originally published November 15, 2016 at 9:54 AM with the headline "Maize school district approves attendance boundaries."