Fallsnewspress.com - Proposed boundary changes await vote of School Board

by Ellin Walsh

Reporter

Cuyahoga Falls -- Sixty-five elementary students await a vote by the Board of Education to determine which school they'll attend next fall.

On March 22, the Cuyahoga Falls City Schools Attendance Boundary Committee intends to recommend revamped attendance boundaries; the move would alter 65 youngsters' assignments to DeWitt, Lincoln, Price and Silver Lake elementaries for the next school year.

"These [proposed] boundary changes are for the benefit of the entire school district and community," Superintendent Dr. Edwin S. Holland wrote in a Feb. 19 letter to parents, "to best utilize our resources."

The committee met again March 11 to discuss feedback from a recent community dialogue and to decide if that would affect its recommendation to the full School Board. During the March 2 dialogue, several parents had asked if the committee was considering changing middle school boundaries, as well as the proposed elementary ones. On March 11, the committee agreed to add a recommendation that it continue meeting; its assignment would be to explore whether all the youngsters who would be moved from DeWitt to Silver Lake Elementary could advance to Roberts Middle School.

The student bodies of Price and Lincoln are split in terms of assignment between Roberts and Bolich, and the committee had originally concluded Silver Lake pupils could do the same.

As proposed by the committee, the enrollment of Price Elementary School would be lowered by moving the southern boundary for Silver Lake Elementary School to the north side of Munroe Falls Avenue. The Silver Lake Elementary attendance boundary would be enlarged to include areas west of the river, bounded on the north by Bailey Road, on the west by Third Street to Northland Street west to Fourth Street, Fourth Street south to Oakwood Drive and Oakwood Drive going east to Portage Trail east to the river.

"I'm still committed to it [our proposed revamping]," committee member Karen Schofield said March 11, adding, "I think we set a goal and we objectively looked at data and I'm still real comfortable [with our recommendation]."

"I'm solid behind it -- leave it the way it is," committee and Board member David Rump concurred.

The committee solicited no input from the seven members of the public in attendance March 11, a fact which DeWitt parent Stephanie Pugh protested.

E-mail: ewalsh@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-686-3908