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Thursday
March 28th, 2024

A community member provides input on proposed school boundary changes on USD 480’s Web site at Thursday’s community forum at the Depot. L&T photo/Robert Pierce

By ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times

Members of a committee charged with looking at possible new boundaries for schools in Liberal met with community members Thursday at the Depot to get feedback about a proposed map for those boundaries.
USD 480 Superintendent Renae Hickert talked about why the boundaries needed to be changed.
“It’s not that our new schools are too small,” she said. “It was because of a special program at Prairie View and the way the boundary lines were drawn originally. It filled Prairie View up very quickly.”
Hickert said this came to the district’s attention late in the 2016-2017 school year, and with the go ahead from Prairie View Elementary Principal Kendra Haskell, USD 480 Board of Education members opted to take time, about a year to look at possible new boundaries.
“We did a dual language feasibility study, and we set to work on the boundaries,” Hickert said.
At the same time, Hickert said district officials would likewise try to alleviate overcrowding at Cottonwood Elementary, one of USD 480’s bigger schools.
“Our goal was to reduce theirs a little bit, reduce Prairie View’s overcrowding and give every elementary school room to grow,” she said. “We were able to do that with what we came through and did with this.”
During the process of coming up with a proposed map, Hickert said the boundary committee looked as many as 13 different scenarios.
“We went through each one and ruled out each one for whatever reason,” she said.
Next, Hickert said the boundary committee studied boundaries for Liberal’s two middle schools, Eisenhower and Seymour Rogers, due to a difference of about 100 students between the two schools.
“That really impacts extra curricular activities and class size,” she said. “We looked at the middle school boundaries to try to even them out. When we got done, Eisenhower is still about 20, 25 students bigger, but that leaves Seymour Rogers room to grow.”
With continuous talks of housing developments in the south part of town, Hickert said the new middle school boundaries not only give Seymour Rogers room to grow, but the amount of housing in south Liberal as well.
Hickert said the process of looking at new boundaries started in October 2017, and after taking their time, committee members concluded their process in late February.
“The board has seen it once, but I wanted the community to have the opportunity  to have input,” she said. “We have this meeting. We have it on our Web site so they can look at it, have input, and at the April 10 board meeting, the board, they may decide they want to wait to give the public a little bit more opportunity. They’ll either approve it on April 10 or April 23 for next year.”
Originally, the BOE wanted to have two meetings like Thursday’s, but Hickert said this will likely be the only such forum on the district’s calendar.
Hickert added when the board approves new boundaries will depend on the feedback from Thursday’s forum and the feedback the district gets on its Web site, www.usd480.net.
“If the board decides it’s not sufficient, they may wait until April 23,” she said.
Whatever the new boundaries may become, Hickert said the ultimate decision lies in the hands of the BOE.
“They have the final say,” she said. “We did look at several scenarios. We finally arrived at one that we felt gave us room to grow for several years.”