Overcrowding at Wichita high school spurs BOE to consider redrawing boundaries

As overcrowding strains Southeast High School, the Wichita school board will consider altering district boundaries to move some students to another high school.

Southeast’s functional building capacity is 1,982 students. This year, the school enrolled 2,192 students, the second most of any Wihita high school behind East.

“Building and classroom safety due to overcrowding at Southeast is a problem that will continue to harm students and faculty at Southeast until we do something about it,” debate teacher Michael Harris told the board of education last month.

“We don’t feel safe,” said Andrew Le, a senior and student body president at Southeast.

“Allow me to take you on a journey of a typical day at Southeast as a student. First, boarding overcrowded buses where some don’t even get a seat and have to result in sitting on the floor. Entering crowded hallways where students are packed like sardines, and how one wrong move, one step on a shoe, could lead to a commotion and even a fight.”

Classrooms that were built for 25 students now routinely cram in at least 35, district staff said at the meeting.

The school board on Monday will consider a proposed measure to alter district maps by reassigning a portion in the northeast boundary of Southeast to Heights High. The district administration is hoping to transfer between 200 and 300 students to Heights. Different options on the table include approving special transfers for current Southeast students who want to leave or requiring all students in the new boundary to switch schools beginning fall 2023.

District staff have enacted some short-term measures to alleviate overcrowding in the meantime — preemptively moving about 30 students to a new ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages) program at Heights, freeing up additional slots at Northeast Magnet for current Southeast students and approving more transfer requests than they would in a normal year.

School board members on Monday will also be briefed on two listening sessions held Wednesday and Thursday, where parents of Southeast students weighed in on the proposed change.

The meeting will also include discussion of next steps for choosing a new Wichita Public Schools superintendent, following news Thursday that Alicia Thompson is retiring at the end of the school year.