The St. Cloud Area School District is considering new boundaries for three south side elementary schools to address space concerns.
The school board discussed the proposed new boundaries at its meeting Wednesday night, which would send new-to-district students in the designated area to Clearview Elementary School and give current families the choice to move schools.
Currently, Oak Hill Community School and the combined Talahi Community School and Lincoln Elementary School have 773 and 959 students respectively, while Clearview has 402 students.
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The proposed boundary changes would move the St. Augusta area and County Road 8 area south of Minnesota Boulevard to Clearview starting next school year, though the move will be optional for families with children already in district schools.
Families with kindergarten students and older siblings could also use a waiver process to allow their kindergartener to attend the same elementary school as their older sibling until they move on to middle school, at which point the family would have the option to transfer the younger student to Clearview.
Current space concerns contributed to the decision to reconsider school boundaries, and the district also examined a handful of planned housing developments that will feed more students into Oak Hill Community School in the future − if the boundaries are not changed.
“With the constraints we currently have at Oak Hill and knowing that there are four somewhat large developments happening in those areas, (we are) trying to project for the future that that could cause some future constraints,” Joel Heitkamp, the district’s executive director of operations, said during Wednesday’s meeting.
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The school district sent out information on the proposed change to families Monday and will answer any questions. Further information on the boundary changes is available on the district’s website, and families can also access an interactive map to check if their home falls within the proposed realignment.
The board will consider the boundary changes for possible approval at a later meeting.
Teagan King covers business and development for the St. Cloud Times. She can be reached at teking@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: St. Cloud weighs changes to some elementary school boundaries