Maize school district will again use preference cards for next year

Maize school district parents once again will submit preference cards indicating which school their fifth- or eighth-grader would like to attend next year.

District leaders have spent more than a year exploring the district’s placement process but have not decided whether to establish boundaries, a feeder pattern or some system other than its current preference system for middle and high schools.

Superintendent Doug Powers said any new system likely wouldn’t take effect by the 2015-16 school year, so the district is moving forward with preference cards.

“If the board decides that we’re going to do boundaries, we realistically could have boundaries drawn and put in place by next school year,” Powers said. “But (residents) would need time to make some decisions and adjustments … based on those lines, if they wanted to do that.”

Unlike most school district, Maize has no geographical attendance boundaries that determine where a child goes to school. Instead, families with students in fifth and eighth grades submit a preference card indicating which middle or high school they would like their child to attend.

The district tries to assign about two-thirds of students to Maize High and one-third to Maize South High.

Two years ago, because more eighth-graders opted for Maize South than in previous years, about two dozen families didn’t get their first-choice school. After a lengthy appeals process, most of the families’ preferences were granted, but the episode launched a districtwide debate over school placement and boundaries.

In June, Maize administrators recommended geographic attendance boundaries to solve the ongoing issue of how to assign students to schools. Earlier this month, the Maize school board voted to contract with RSP & Associates, an Olathe-based consulting group, for a demographic study and enrollment analysis that eventually could lead to boundary lines.

RSP is the firm the Wichita school district hired in 2011 to create new boundary proposals and gather public input.

Powers, the Maize superintendent, said the district plans to hold its annual Showcase Night at both high schools on Nov. 6. Families with students in middle school will be invited to tour Maize High and Maize South, which opened in 2009, to see what each school has to offer.

Powers said officials will try to inform families about the placement process and clarify that indicating a preference does not guarantee a student will be assigned to their preferred school. A question-and-answer document posted on the district’s website last year explains how the process works, he said.

“Communication is critical to everything that we do,” Powers said. “We need to be very clear with our communication and very educational in what we put out so the facts are out there and folks aren’t getting mixed messages.”

This story was originally published September 21, 2014 at 1:28 PM with the headline "Maize school district will again use preference cards for next year."