Originally published on 11/21/19
The second meeting of the Alvin ISD School Boundary Advisory Committee kicked off with nearly 150 committee and community members filling the cafeteria at Manvel Jr. High on the evening of Monday, November 18. Those in attendance were greeted with a welcome from Pat Miller, Chief of Operations. Miller affirmed the critical work of those in attendance and shared, “the process of establishing new boundaries is underway; however, we are not to the point of finalizing the committees’ recommendations. There is still much work to do prior to the committee presenting their findings to the Alvin ISD Board of Trustees on January 14th.”
Miller reminded the group about the design of the School Boundary Advisory Process. The committee meetings will remain open to the public and the active members of the committee include representatives from each Alvin ISD campus. Additionally, there are two ways for community members to provide feedback to the committee. Community members in attendance were encouraged to utilize the feedback cards on each table. Additionally, a link has been set up on the Alvin ISD website for community members to provide their feedback or insight.
When asked about the need for creating new attendance boundaries, Rory Gesch, Deputy Superintendent shared, “Establishing new school boundaries can be a challenging and emotional process. As a fast growth school district that opens new schools almost annually, we have the challenge of developing boundaries for each added campus. Inevitably, when a new boundary is developed to alleviate overcrowding at existing campuses, boundaries for the more established campuses can be impacted. Our desire is to do this work in the most open and transparent way possible which includes eliciting tremendous feedback from both committee members and our community as a whole.”
As the meeting progressed, Miller outlined the work for the evening, “Tonight we are going to continue working with elementary boundaries. During the last meeting, there were a lot of common threads in the feedback provided by the groups.” Miller reiterated, “we want to make sure that we have considered all of the feedback received from the Alvin ISD website. Our goal is to develop boundaries that are sensitive to the needs of our students and families, while also making the most efficient use of our available campus capacities.”
After much discussion, each committee group reported out with comments focused on relieving overcrowding of campuses, both now and in light of projected enrollment growth. The comments focused on balancing enrollment and shifting boundaries to ensure equity throughout the district. Each smaller committee group shared their unique insight into potential changes.
Following the updates shared by each working group, Miller outlined the next steps in the process. He shared that District staff will work with our demographer to refine the working maps in light of the feedback provided this evening. Miller also summarized, “one of the prevailing trends from this evening is that McNair Jr. High is over capacity, and will need some leveling for the following school year.”
As the meeting drew to a close, Miller reminded those in attendance that the minutes from the meeting will be posted on the website within a week, allowing some time for the committee to approve the draft of the minutes.
The next two meetings are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on December the 9th and 16th in the Manvel Jr. High cafeteria. If you would like more information on the process or the opportunity to provide feedback please visit, www.alvinisd.net/sbac.