St. Charles School District 303 set to approve new enrollment zone boundaries

After months of planning and discussion, St. Charles School District 303 board members are set to vote on new enrollment zones for district middle schools and high schools at their Feb. 12 meeting.

Since last summer, the school board has been approving major changes to the structure of district elementary schools to address overcrowding. Approved changes include repurposing Lincoln Elementary to house staff and transition programming, reopening Fox Ridge as an elementary school, moving early childhood care to the Haines Center, new grade level configurations for Richmond and Davis, and the transfer of the dual-language program to Richmond.

Because of these changes, the board is also working to redraw the boundary lines of enrollment zones across all schools. For some students and families, this will be the second time they are displaced by an enrollment zone change in the past six years.

School Board members will vote on whether or not to approve changes to the enrollment zone boundaries of middle schools and high schools at their Feb. 12 meeting, and will continue to discuss elementary zone changes.

The board was presented with several concepts for each level by demographer RSP & Associates, and reached consensus on moving forward with concepts for grade school and high schools. The high school concept being considered is the only one that would not change the current boundaries.

While the board found consensus for grade school and high school boundaries at a Jan. 16 meeting, the elementary school zones have been discussed at length during each meeting since.

Community members have shown up in numbers during recent meetings to voice their concerns and opinions on the proposed concepts, mainly at the elementary level.

At the Feb. 5 meeting, after hearing from six community members and more board discussion, board members still did not reach consensus to move an elementary school concept forward, and will continue the discussion at next week’s meeting.

If a consensus is reached for elementary school zones at the Feb 12. meeting, the board plans to call a special meeting soon after for a possible vote.

Once approved, the new enrollment zones will go into effect in the 2024-25 school year.