some common questions and answers about the boundary changes.

Bakersfield City School District – Boundary Changes Questions and Answers 1. Why are boundary changes necessary? The District has not changed its school boundaries since 1999, almost fifteen years ago. BCSD has experienced significant growth of almost 2,500 students over the past three years and is now at its highest enrollment in the District’s history. In addition, BCSD is opening two new schools, Fletcher Elementary School and Cato Middle School in August 2014. School boundary changes are necessary to populate the new schools and to alleviate overcrowding at existing campuses. 2. What is the process for adopting boundary changes? BCSD established a boundary change committee that has been meeting since August. The committee is made up of parents, principals, union representatives and staff to review data…Various boundary scenarios were carefully reviewed and evaluated using data analysis provided by DecisionInsite, the District’s demographics consultant. After BCSD has received input from the public through a series of community informational meetings on November 6 and 7, the Committee will submit a boundary change recommendation to the BCSD Board of Education for review on November 26 and action/adoption on December 10. 3. How can a parent find out which schools their students would attend under the boundary change proposal? BCSD has established a boundary information page on its web site (www.bcsd.com). Parents can enter their address using an online tool called My School Locator to find out which schools their students would attend under the boundary change proposal. 4. What are some of the benefits of the boundary change proposal? The proposed boundary changes would reduce overcrowding at eleven elementary schools: Stella Hills, Hort, Eissler, Longfellow, Garza, Horace Mann, Pauly, College Heights, Casa Loma, Voorhies, Chavez. The proposed boundary changes would eliminate many of the non-connected boundary areas that currently exist, reduce current travel distances for many students, and enable elementary school students to all attend the same middle/junior high school instead of splitting off to multiple middle/junior high schools under the current boundaries. 5. What criteria were considered in developing the proposed boundary changes? Travel distances, projected school enrollments and capacities, safety, geographic features (major roads, canals, railroad tracks), school feeder alignments, contiguous attendance areas, socioeconomics).