student assignment at wcpss.net Manana this evening this evening session will focus on the opening of the new Pleasant Plains Elementary School and other related recommendations in the western area of the district including recommendations related to the newly renovated bam elementary school as a reminder today's session was prepared by the office of student assignment and the information we will review with you this evening is a subset of the full presentation that was shared with the board during their work session on September 3rd again this evening's session will focus on the opening of the new Pleasant Plains Elementary School and other related recommendations in the western area of our district including recommendations related to the newly renovated balam Elementary School electronical uh Student Assignment uh wcpss.net before we begin let me go over some Logistics our session will last for no more than an hour and a half we will begin with a presentation and conclude by responding to questions from today's session we recognize that now and throughout the session you may have questions regarding the proposal or the recommended stability rules to capture your question we will be using the Q&A feature within Google meet to access this feature from a computer please click on the three shapes in the toolbar on your screen if you are using a mobile device select the three dots first then select the icon with the three shapes you should then see a Q&A feature identified by a question mark icon to ensure your questions are Anonymous our host and moderators will be monitoring the Q&A for questions and capturing them throughout this evening's session once you see that your question has been removed from the Q&A that means your question has been successfully captured by our moderators and you do not need to resubmit your question we will make every effort to respond to your questions toward the end of our session in addition we will use your questions to update the FAQ portion of our website see neita elect student assignment wcpss.net in addition we are asking that you contribute to the larger Community discussion related to this initial draft of the 2526 School enrollment proposal via the thought exchange the thought exchange will remain open through September 29th after it is closed we will summarize the feedback received through the thought exchange and will share this summary with the board during their work session on October 15 no one will be personally identified in the summary before I turn things over to Susan we would like to remind you that today's session will focus on the opening of the new Pleasant Plains Elementary School and other related recommendations in the western area of our district including recommendations related to the newly renovated buckham Elementary School I would like i' like to welcome to the discussion Kristen small who is the principal at Turner Creek Elementary School by the end of this evening's session you will have had the opportunity to review the assignment planning process review recommendations included in the initial draft specific to your area of the district share thoughts and ideas via thought exchange for review and consideration by both staff and board members and perhaps most importantly share questions that will help you gain a better understanding of the potential impacts of the proposed plan for your family and now I will turn things over to Susan Eric thank you for welcoming everyone and getting us started and again for our families thank you for taking the time to join us this evening as a quick reminder um we will be using the Q&A feature and we'll show that screen a couple of times throughout our session to capture your questions for tonight's session so if you do have questions that pop up throughout the initial part of our presentation please use that Q&A feature and again in a few slides I will share that with you um so that just in case you've missed that you'll have that that information so again thank you all for joining us um and I'm just very grateful for this opportunity to share information with you about the current or initial draft of the 2025 2026 enrollment plan to provide some context on September 3rd staff members presented the initial draft of the new student assignment proposal to the Board of Education the draft does include proposed School assignment changes specific to the 2025 2026 school year as has been mentioned in a couple of previous slides we're are going to talk about the opening of Pleasant Plains but this year Student Assignment proposal actually focuses on the opening of four new schools bowling Road Elementary Pleasant Plains Elementary Rex Road Elementary and Felton Grove High School um it also includes base assignment changes calendar application changes and other recommendations to relieve capped and overcrowded schools in our district while also working to fill some of our underutilized schools many not all but many of these changes will allow students to attend a less crowded school and in many cases to have a shorter bu right or a bus rout but again not in all cases but in many The Proposal also does include stability rules for families impacted by their recommendations included in the current proposal all of the information will share during tonight's presentation um along with other tools and resources to help you better understand the recommendations included in the initial draft are located on our district website the enrollment proposal website that you see at the top of your screen is specifically designed to help you access information about the proposal for the 2526 school year it will be updated regularly as new information and resources are available throughout this year's process including updated FAQ excuse me FAQs and video resources the main website that you see on the lower portion of the screen is a great resource for anyone that's interested to learn more about the complete planning process that we use as a district um and as we prepare to develop our annual enrollment plans we recognize that some of you may just now be joining us or may have joined us since Eric our host gave you some instructions on how to submit questions so just as a reminder if you'd like to submit questions for today's session please check your toolbars if you are using a computer we'd like for you to look for that Q&A feature on your computer and click on those three shapes um that will let you then see that question mark icon that you're looking for if you're using a mobile device you're going to want to click on these three dots first and then you'll see those shapes and then ultimately what you're looking for is that question mark in the Q&A feature just as a quick reminder we will be making sure that all of your questions are recorded anonymously so once you see that your question has been removed from the Q&A that's your indication that the moderators have captured your question and you do not need to resubmit that question we will make every effort to respond to all of your questions toward the end of today's session also we just want to do a quick reminder that our thought exchange for this initial draft is currently open and will REM remain open through September 29th this is the best way to share thoughts and ideas that can be shared not only with our planning team but also our board members as all of them have access to all of the thoughts that are being posted in the thought exchange we will um close after Theo after it closes on September 9th we'll prepare a summary and we'll share share that summary with the board during their work session on October 15 to ensure that you have a better understanding of how this year's proposal was developed we're going to take just a few minutes and I I do mean a few minutes we won't go spend too much time on this but we want to briefly review our planning process and our public engagement progress to date the policy that guides the development of our District's annual enrollment plan is board policy 4150 this policy does direct staff to balance to the extent reasonable uh the goals and factors identified by four main pillars those pillars are student achievement proximity stability and operational efficiency each of these pillars do have specific definitions within board policy 4150 so to help out we're going to share a brief video that walks through those four pillars of the assignment policy it does provide a foundation for the process that we use in the development of our current draft of the enrollment proposal understanding Student Assignment it's no secret that our school district is growing and it's growing fast that means each year we need to address overcrowded schools and often need to open new schools to keep up with this growth to State the obvious we may have to reduce the enrollment at an existing school or fill new schools with students this is done through the annual Student Assignment process to best understand when and where New Growth is coming in our district we conduct an annual enrollment forecast this forecast helps us look ahead up to 10 years and project enrollment growth throughout the district this information helps us update our Capital Improvement plan and to make more informed decisions related to school assignments each year some students are assigned to one of our new schools or reassigned to an existing school this ensures we have balanced School populations across the district we know families love their schools and that Student Assignment decisions can be worrisome that's why we want to be completely transparent in how we make them our school board has established four pillars that guide each and every student assignment decision here's what they mean and how they work together student achievement we want all of our schools to provide the best academic opportunities for our students this pillar compels us to think about whether a student assignment plan can help reduce high concentrations of poverty or low performing students at some of our schools stability essentially we try to keep as many children at their current School through the exit grade as possible when reassignments are necessary we provide the opportunity for some students to submit a stability transfer request and stay at their current School through the exit grade operational efficiency this pillar is about making sure all of our school schools and transportation resources are at their best use overcrowded schools are a problem classrooms packed with too many students are one thing but then there are the endless car poool lines bathroom facilities that can't comfortably accommodate everyone and having to start lunch when most people are still working on breakfast on the flip side having under enrolled schools is an inefficient use of public resources particularly when there are crowded schools nearby proximity okay this one can be a little tricky in a perfect world houses would be built in neat little rows on a predictable timeline and at a slow and steady rate as it is we live in an imperfect world where lots and lots of homes pop up in one area while growth is slight or non-existent in others for this reason it is impossible to send every child to their most proximate School unless we want some of our schools bursting at the seams While others are half empty that said this pillar states that we will send students to schools within a reasonable distance often the difference between the most proximate school and the next most proximate school is no more than a couple of Miles please remember that we must consider all four of these pillars when making assignment decisions there is no priority among the four that applies in every situation it's a balancing act that ultimately Ely helps us come up with the best possible plan for everyone thank you for working with us to ensure our school system continues to serve all students [Music] well understanding student assign it never fails it always wants to restart I apologize for that hopefully that video helped to uh explain the different pillars that are in that policy a little bit better for more information on anything related to the policy or our planning please continue to visit our uh website as an entire copy of the policy is available for those of you that are interested in reading it in its entirety so in addition to the guidances provided by board policy 4150 we do follow an annual planning cycle that has six major components to it the first step is the presentation of the annual enrollment forecast the forecast provides both one and 10year projections for enrollment growth in the district even though the enrollment forecast provides a 10-year projection for enrollment in the district it is updated annually to account for any changes in residential development patterns home sales birth rates and other areas that impact enrollment forecasts um Business Development all those sorts of things uh simply knowing how many students the district needs to be prepared to serve is helpful however knowing where within and throughout the district this growth is expected is particularly useful for us during the development of the annual enrollment plan the map here depicts the projected change in total student population residing in various areas across the district over the next 10 years what you should notice is that this growth is not evenly distributed throughout the district you're probably aware that you're in a high growth area and that some areas of the district are projected to stabilize and have minimal changes in student numbers over the next 10 years I've highlighted the region that will be discussed in today's presentation for additional context as I mentioned we're going to go through these steps pretty quickly and I'll show you um a place where you can look at these in Greater detail for those of you that are interested in diving deeper into the six steps of our planning process the next step in our process is to view the projected crowding for the next school year so in addition to providing that 10-year Outlook the annual forecast does give us a one-year projection that we can use not only to determine the funding needs for the district but also to project crowding um throughout the district um going into the next school year in this case the projections that were shared um help us determine projections in March of 2024 and those were for the current 20242 school year here you see a quick look at the projected crowding for our elementary middle and high schools throughout the district based on that annual forecast again highlighting uh the area of focus that we'll be discussing in today's session and just quick context the darker the red or orange color the more crowded it's projected to be meaning well above 100% in this case well above 100 110% if it's yellow then it's kind of in that 95 to 100% range um and so as you can see in this region there's quite a few schools that are projected to be at or above 100% crowding going for this current school year oops I went a little too fast um highlighted here um we'll now talk about the third step in the process which is the review of the capital Improvement plan also known as the CIP it does include any adjustments that have been made throughout the planning process and so at this point in the process not only do we take stock of which new schools are still on schedule and projected to open but we also um get an update on any major Renovations that might be adding capacity to schools throughout the district highlighted the green circle is the general location of the new Woods Creek Elementary that opened this past July some of you may have even attended school at this campus as you were bacham students um bacham did spend about a year or so in that facility while they were waiting for their renovations to complete the orange circles that you see here are the four schools that are projected to open for the 2025 2026 school year um and so we'll talk about at least one of those um during this evening's presentation in the darker gray circles share with you what's going on in the future years of that CIP or Capital Improvement plan shown to you a little bit differently this chart shows the projected opening for all uh approved new school projects in the seven-year CIP please note that although those major Renovations that I mentioned earlier are happening during this same time and are not depicted here on this chart they are accounted for during the annual enrollment process or enrollment planning process I do want to pause for a moment acknowledge the asteris that you might be seeing um besides all of the school names here um and everywhere throughout the chart those Asters do uh remind us that all of our major projects both new schools and major Renovations have the potential for completion date changes based on Market volatility scope changes and changes in design or construction schedules essentially we're constantly monitoring the progress of all of our construction projects and will'll adjust recommendations to the annual enrollment plan as needed at this time you can see in Orange that we're planning for the opening of bowling Road Elementary Pleasant Plains Elementary Rex Road Elementary and Felton Grove Elementary all in the 2025 26 school year in addition balam Elementary and fwave Arena Middle have moved into their newly renovated campuses with some expanded capacity this school year and recommendations for both of those schools are included in the initial draft proposal during today's presentation we'll specifically review the recommendations for the new Pleasant Plains Elementary as well as that expanded capacity at Falcom Elementary once the forcast is completed the projected crowding has been assessed and capital Improvement plan updates have been reviewed we're now ready to begin step four of our process which is the preparation of the annual enrollment plan the first step is to initiate public engagement activities and so hopefully some of you were able to join us between that March and may time frame where we went out into the community and captured thoughts and ideas from families and community members to help inform the development of the enrollment plan for this year's plan again those sessions were held in March to May for a complete summary of all the thoughts and ideas captured from families and community members during this year's public engagement process uh please visit our PL enrollment planning site so that site on the bottom that'll have links to all all of the information that we captured from those sessions overall we had an increase of about 75% for participants attending our in-person sessions as well as our virtual sessions um as compared to the same time last year when we hosted sessions in 2023 you can also see the participation information for this specific area highlighted in green participants in these sessions were presented with two core questions uh essentially and these core questions were really designed to generate conversation and and we sort of kind of let the conversation go where it would specifically they were asked to share thoughts about the what district leadership should take into consideration when opening new schools in a community as well as in general managing growth in school crowding as I mentioned we're not going to spend a lot of time on these full com this full presentation is available on our website so if you'd like to look at these in Greater detail you can but as you can see many thoughts and ideas were generated and captured during these sessions and we really have taken these ideas and concerns into consideration throughout the planning process here you see a few more of those key takeaways from these sessions and again full summaries of all of these sessions are available on our assignment planning website in addition to those live or in-person sessions we also hosted several different thought exchanges so that we could increase access for families and community members to this important discussion overall we had an increase in thoughts submitted of about 275 % compared to exchanges that we hosted on similar subjects in 2023 you can see the participation information for the exchanges specific to this area highlighted in green and here you see just a quick sample of the results of the thought exchange specific to your area again for a full summary of this information we do encourage you to continue to visit our assignment planning website we're often asked what do we do with this information that we gather during the Spring Public engagement session and a few examples of how we extend the work of those sessions is by reviewing and assessing the information gathered to determine if any topics require a more detailed exploration this year we did identify a key question related to calendar alignment and some of you are already expressing it in the thought exchange and I've taken a peek I've seen some of the questions that you're posted this idea that we might need to have multitrack you're round elementary schools and then go on to traditional middle and high schools and get some feedback from families about about that we've recently concluded those interviews they were AIS supported interviews we were able to expand um our offering and participation in that to people who volunteered to participate in focus groups and we're going to share um the findings of that set of interviews with our board at a future work session another way that we extended that conversation from those Spring Public engagement sessions was to really thoughtfully consider how we could uh amend revise or provide stability rules that give as much to ility is possible to families while also allowing the district to be um efficient in its operation of schools um the last thing that you'll see here on this slide is that one of the major key things that we take away is cohort continuity and C uh sort of community continuity as well as calendar continuity um so those types of ideas were also um heavily considered uh by the planning team When developing the recommendations for this year again these are just a few examples of how we work to incorporate the feedback we received during uh that we receive from families and community members um in preparing the initial draft of recommendations for uh the first for the first draft of the enrollment once we've done that we also at some point in this process this year it was in may we start having a clarifying conversation with our board to determine what the board you know has decided should be included in a particular Year's enrollment plan so for this year's enrollment plan in addition to developing attendance areas for new schools the board asked us to consider addressing crowding and cap schools where possible as well as to address other important school choice options for the district uh specifically the board asked that we continue the district's efforts to reduce high concentrations of poverty and promote integration and diversity as well as continuing to work toward improving operational and transportation efficiency that full presentation is also available on our website um should you care to review it at this stage in the planning process for the annual enrollment plan we're ready to share the initial draft recommendations for the board's review and consideration and that's sort of where we are now however before we dive into the recommendations I would like to briefly review with you steps five and six in this planning cycle uh the information on this side reflects step five in the planning process reviewing and approving cap schools due to overcrowding concerns this work is generally completed after the approval of an annual enrollment plan so once the board approved the 2425 enrollment plan last fall back in November the staff then reviewed which schools were still facing overcrowding concerns and brought specific capping recommendations to the board in February you can see the names of the schools in your area that are currently capped highlighted in green and you'll also notice that at least one of your schools has the designation of a FP or feeder pattern cap meaning it it has an extended cap Beyond just a basic traditional cap and then here you see step six in the planning process reviewing options to address other school utilization concerns in particular part three of this step a review of schools operating on a yearound calendar that did not have long-term crowding concerns did result in the board approving calendar changes for two of our middle schools for the 25 26 school year these are not in your region so they're not highlighted in green but we just wanted to make you aware of how the process continues on um after the approval of the annual enrollment plan again as a reminder all of the information related to our six-step planning process C be found on our assign assignment planning website in addition we've created a separate website for information specific to this year's um enrollment plan or the 2526 enrollment plan and that's the site you see at the top of this slide I'm assuming you visited there since you're here today all right and a reminder at any time during the presentation you're invited to post questions using the Q&A tool and I can see that several of you have already use that tool so it looks like most of you have been able to find it but just in case you're joining us a little bit late you're looking for that shape um on your toolbar the triangle square and circle shapes um if you don't see that and you're on a mobile device you might want to look for those three dots first and then find those shapes and then of course you're looking for that question mark to let you know you found the Q&A feature again we're going to capture all of those questions anonymously so once you see that your question has been removed that lets you know that our moderators has have successfully captured the question and I'm going to work really hard to quickly move through the next few slides so that we can get to those questions as quickly as possible again again our thought exchange remains open that is your best Avenue to make sure information and concerns and comments that you have about the initial draft are able to be reviewed by the board after it closes on September 9th we will do a complete summary of all of the information collected and share that with the board during our review with them on October 15 all right so at this point we're going to start moving into the specific recommendations for this region and hope it's our hope that you will find that the following recommendations do take into account information shared in those in the review and update section um that of our presentation today which includes guidance provided by board policy 4150 the input and feedback collected from families and community members over the last couple of years the need to address capped and overcrowded schools in this region in particular while being mindful of future School openings the need to continue the district's efforts to reduce high concentrations of poverty and promote integration and diversity and our need to support improvements in both operational and transportation efficiency just as a quick summary for the 2526 enrollment plan we have completed steps 1 through three and we're now in the middle of step four which will carry us through the end of November once the board approves a final plan then we'll be ready to start initiating steps five and six we'll start with an overview of the base assignment changes recommended in the in the entire draft by grade span so what you're seeing here is a a map of the elementary schools um the area that we'll be talking about today is mostly highlighted in this region of the county but hopefully you'll notice that a vast majority of our county is unaffected or not included in this initial draft as we really have worked to focus on the opening of the three new schools in the Southern and Southwestern portions of our district here you'll see uh the impacts at the middle school level again very few impacts at the middle school level the vast majority of the district is not impacted by recommendations in this the vast majority of the small recommendations that are included are related to the opening of the new elementary schools or perhaps our high school filon Grove some calendar or feeder pattern alignments um and there are one or two that are based on proximity and transportation efficiency as well and at the high school level you as you can see um it's largely related to the opening of filon Grove High School with a handful of other adjustments based on either Transportation or operational efficiency so as we get ready to talk about the recommendations for this region we're specifically going to walk through the recommendations for developing an attendance area for the new Pleasant Plains Elementary School and we're also going to talk about some recommendations related to the expanded capacity now available at the newly renovated bacham elementary school but before we jump in we do know that stability rules tend to be top of mind for most of our families so we want to talk about the stability rues rules that are currently proposed for families that are impacted by the recommendations that we're going to talk about today so the opening of a new school as well as movement from existing schools to existing schools to take advantage of that capacity of outcome so please note that the recommendations related to Pleasant Plains Elementary because it is a new school will be slightly different than the recommendations for other types of moves included in this initial draft so we'll start specifically with opening a new school so for students that are living in attendance areas that are projected to be assigned to the new Pleasant Plains Elementary School the stability rules that are recommended are very similar to those in fact exactly the same as the ones that we used for Woods Creek last year the idea here is expanded stability if you'll recall from the video when we talk about stability the only thing it says in policy is that we would allow Rising fifth graders to stay at their current school if they're impacted by reassignment based on feedback from the community over the last several years we've realized that anything we can do to expand that and add more grade levels would be you know beneficial to families and supportive supported by both families and schools and so what we've determined is that from an operational efficiency standpoint balancing that with the stability needs of our family we've expanded the stability rules for the opening of new schools and so instead of it just being fifth graders that are eligible both fourth and fifth graders so what that means is if your student today is a third or a fourth grader that therefore next year for 25 26 would be a fourth or a fifth grader they would be eligible under the current proposed stability rules to remain at their current school the only caveat is that we can't provide District transportation and we do recognize it that is an obstacle for some families however with the current national and regional Bus Driver shortage it it's it's how we can sort of find that happy medium certainly if you can find a way to do carpool you're welcome to stay um if you need that District Transportation you may want to elect to go to the new to the new school or if you prefer the new school because it's closer to your home or you like the calendar there's all kinds of reasons why families might elect to go to the new school the other thing that we did to expand stability for families is to enhance the sibling portion of this rule in the past that Rising fifth grade student could stay and any younger siblings could stay for the one year that that student was in fifth grade and then once that fifth grader moved on to Middle School all of those younger sibling would be assigned to the base school for the address so to address stability for families we've made a recommendation to expand this stability rule to provide much more generous stability rules for our families so that if you do have an eligible Rising fourth or fifth grade student who could you know take advantage of the stability rules and any younger siblings that would like to join them they can not only join them for that year or two they can actually stay through the end of fifth grade if that's what works best for your family again there's no District transportation provided but those expanded stability rules we feel is is a is a way to try to provide that stability for families so that if you'd like to stay at your current school where you've developed some relationships and you have those older students that are eligible those younger students can join and stay through um and so we'll talk probably a little bit later about the specifics about stability transfers because I'm sure a lot of you are going to have questions so I won't stick here too long but I just wanted to share that expanded stability rules for the opening of new schools is really itive and responsive to the feedback that we received from community members and families over the last couple of years you'll see the note that these do need to be submitted during the stability transfer window and that's specifically because we the only way we can guarantee that we can approve them is is if we get them during that time period other changes so because this area is impacted but what I by what I call maybe cascading or Domino impacts with the opening with the expanded capacity of bam Elementary and some seat availability going to become open at Scott's Ridge as a result of the opening of Pleasant Plains if anyone's being recommended to go from let's say Olive Chapel to Scott Ridge or from Olive Chapel to bakam or Salem to Bam any families in those situations because it's an existing school with an existing complement of students an existing teaching staff we have really expanded and generous stability rules any student at any grade would be eligible to stay at their current school if they can provide their own transportation um and those younger siblings can join them as well and again those are all valid through the end of fifth grade there are a couple of Middle School changes in this area that we're going to address just because we've got so many families on the on the call so if there's anyone who's impacted by those Middle School changes again because they're all going to be from an existing school to an existing School we're not opening any new middle schools this year any student that can provide their own transportation that would like to remain at their current School would be eligible to do so under the current proposed stability rules for more details on all of this you're certainly again uh welcome to visit our website um and there's a lot of FAQs there as well but of course you're here tonight so we're going to answer those questions live at the end of this session as well so this is how you post your questions I I see them flooding in Fast and Furious so I don't think anyone's having any issues finding the Q&A feature but just a quick reminder use the Q&A feature in the Google meet if you'd like to post a question for today's session and again please continue contributing to the discussion in the thought exchange all right so let's jump in for Pleasant Plains Elementary it is one of our new elementary schools uh Pleasant Plains Elementary is very close to the existing Scots R Elementary I think most of you probably are familiar with where it's located but here's where it is roughly within the entire County or within the entire District it's in the Apex area Pleasant Plains currently is recommended to open as a multi-track yearound school which will give it a capacity of 900 124 students the reason that staff is recommending this for all of our new elementary schools is because if you'll notice on that CIP there's really not any more elementary schools coming in this region over the next seven or so years and so we feel like it's from a taxpayer fiscal responsibility um sort of stewardship lens to provide the most capacity possible with the very first opening year um the better so that we can handle and manage all the growth that's coming in this region at this time there are three base attendance areas that are projected to sort of be drawn from to build the base for Pleasant Plains Elementary and that's Apex Elementary Apex friendship Elementary and Scots Ridge Elementary um in addition because of some availability that's going to be created at Scots Ridge Olive Chapel is impacted but it is not recommended to send any students to the new school so that means any student in the current proposal that are recommended to come from Olive Chapel to to a different school they would all have those most generous stability rules but the students that are currently attending Apex or Apex friendship or Scots Ridge would be in those slightly more restricted stability rules where you'd need to be a fourth or a fifth grader or the younger sibling of one of those fourth or fifth graders the blue that you're seeing here on the table lets you know that this is the before data in other words if we make no changes to the attendance areas for these schools you can see the projected crowding for the 25 26 School school year they're all near or significantly above 100% And of course at our elementary level that creates all kinds of complications you saw it in the video with carpool launch uh just having space to move around the building being able to have sufficient time at recess and as you can see because you're a high growth area all of those numbers are projected to get even higher going into the next school year again we will be using the Q&A feature um so we will not be answering live questions we want to make sure all your questions are confidential so please post your questions to the Q&A feature so here you see the two maps that we use to demonstrate what we're sort of projecting and so this map over here represents the before the colors that you see here represent the current attendance areas for each of the schools so the dark green that you see here represents the existing Olive Chapel Elementary School based attendance area this sort of periwinkle or light blue color represents the current eight friendship Elementary based attendance area the magenta is purpley kind of color represents the current Scots Ridge Elementary base attendance area and this sort of orangish color represents the current Apex Elementary base attendance area because Pleasant Plains Elementary is so proximate to Scots Ridge Elementary the current recommendation is to focus on this area and you can kind of see the the hashed mark area right here um this is the current area that's being proposed to become the new attendance area for Pleasant Plaines which you now see on this side in yellow um we've received a lot of feedback about the proximity of Pleasant Plains Elementary to some newer neighborhoods that are on that side of the county um we're assessing all of that I believe Depot 499 is the most common neighborhood that's come up that you know say hey we're super close to Pleasant planes um so we are evaluating all of that as we receive all that feedback in so that's an example of how we're truly trying to dig in and and see what amilies are providing his information um but right now this is the current projected attendance area the other portion and so you can see there in yellow that becomes sort of the the recommended attendance area what this does is relieves capped Apex friendship Elementary capped Scotts Ridge Elementary and relatively full Apex Elementary if you don't recall Apex Elementary was one of our cap schools just about a year or so ago and recently had its cap removed the other portion of this map that I want to draw to your attention in that was labeled here with a number two is a portion of the current Olive Chapel Elementary based attendance area again one of our capped very crowded overcrowded schools um this portion of the attendance area is currently being proposed to move from Olive Chapel to Scots Ridge Elementary and become part of Scots Ridge Elementary's based attendance area so that we can take advantage of some of that space that's been created at Scotts Ridge by the opening of Pleasant Plains and provide some relief to ol of Chapel Elementary here in the orange label that sort of gives you the indication you're now looking at after numbers so what you're seeing here is that after these proposed changes we do see a bit of a stabilization still not perfect we still have some schools like Apex friendship and Olive Chapel that are well above 100% crowding even with these proposed changes you'll also notice that there's an aster here beside Olive Chapel that's just to let you know that it's going to be uh it's projected currently to be impacted by a couple of moves and so this is a sum total of all of those moves so that number will be the same on any chart that you see Olive Chapel on um as you can see this would sort of start Pleasant planes a little bit under enrolled this is in response to feedback we've received from community members about trying to do a balance of existing neighborhoods and new developing neighborhoods to build an attendance area for an elementary school so that over time as those new developments build out the school gets bigger and bigger and bigger each year for balam elementary very very proximate to this campus or to this region um we're not recommending a calendar change it's currently operating on a traditional calendar we would recommend maintaining that calendar however we are going to notice that the original building at this site had a capacity of 508 and in its newly renovated form it has a capacity of 716 and so they're going to spend this year kind of taking advantage of all that new space and filling in and then we do want want to take advantage of that space long term and provide some relief to nearby schools particularly those that are capped or projected to be overcrowded um in the near future so what you'll see for this map again similar things the the dark green represents the current Olive Chapel base attendance area this sort of pinkish purpley color represents the current Salem Elementary based attendance area this sort of aqua color is the current buum elementary based attendance area which does include this piece over here um seagro Farms is one of the communities that's in that area this bluish area represents the current Laural Park Elementary base attendance area and this orange represents the current Penny Road base attendance area and so what you'll see in the recommendations is a focus um on the western side of bakam this road here is 540 this is 55 or Williams or GB Alford depending on which part of the county that you're in and so the recommendation is to take those two portions of both the Salem based attendance area and the Olive Chapel base attendance area and realign them to bom Elementary to take advantage of that expanded capacity so you'll see that that would be the new attendance area um we have heard from a couple of communities that are particularly in the Olive Chapel portion believe it's AST Le downs and Pearson Farms mentioning that there's a sidewalk and that sometimes they might even walk to Olive Chapel Elementary and so the good news there is that with all of the growth that's coming on this side of Olive Chapel the best that we could do to provide relief to Olive Chapel was to maybe come to that sort of Eastern edge of its attendance area and take advantage of the capacity at BAM however those families because it is Olive Chapel to bachum existing Elementary School to existing Elementary School they would have those most generous attendant or stability rules and any student at any grade that's currently attending Olive Chapel would be permitted to stay under those stability rules as long as the family put in that request during the stability window and again we can talk about that a little bit later um so there is a a way for those families that are truly walking to school to be able to continue to do so because obviously District transportation would not be provided um but if you don't need it and that's sort of a perfect situation however new residents newer students would slowly eventually start to become part of that welcome um base attendance area there is a portion over here that is non-contiguous with the existing base attendance area for bacham and with all of those students coming in from those two areas the Salem attendance area is a bit of a high growth area there's some new developments that are being built in this as well as some existing students and then this portion of Salem is a really high growth part of their base attendance area so to get ahead of that growth we're recommending that this portion from Salem Elementary become part of bom to provide initial relief to Salem in advance of the growth that's coming as well as to take advantage of that capacity at BAM the other portion of this attendance area that's impacted is uh the portion for bacham that's non-contiguous and so the recommendation there is based on the fact there's an existing Transportation Route and it's very proximate to the neighborhood just slightly south of it that uh that become part of Penny Road Elementary and we have heard from several families that would prefer to stay at BAM so again the large the most expansive stability rules would be in place if you can provide your own transportation you're certainly welcome to take advantage of those stability transfers if this recommendation goes forward as uh currently proposed the other portion that we're going to talk about is this little portion of Salem Elementary um we're recommending that that be added to the Laurel Park Elementary based attendance area again just rebalancing some of the projected growth that's going to come in this area to make some room at Salem for that growth that's coming in the future and to take advantage of some space at Laurel Park we've heard from some families about Laurel Park and its current conf track configuration this would not change that they would maintain their current track configuration this would just provide a more stable based attendance area over time for the school all right and here we have the before and after charts all on one page again all of this is on our website if this is too small to look at on our screen today but you can see that schools like Olive Chapel are are you know significantly reduced schools like Laurel Park are able to pick up some additional students and then take that growth forward um we're looking at balam is a little concerning at this rate but the reason that this is so high is because Bamm is currently serving as an overflow school for both Scott Ridge Elementary and Apex friendship Elementary and so with some of the changes that we're recommending that number is projected to um rapidly decrease and and stabilize and 112% is most likely not going to be the crowding factor for bakam elementary however Olive Chapel isn't officially 100% relieved but we're getting a little bit closer um keep in mind that all of these crowding numbers are based on the full utilization of these buildings with all of the trailers that they currently have on their campus so for some schools we're perhaps they're looking to reduce their dependency on trailers we'd still have even more work to do over time to try to relieve the crowding in those areas but as you can see here Salem is going to continue to grow over the next couple of years and so with those generous stability rules it's quite possible that these numbers won't exactly be just like this um so just as a quick reminder the before the after numbers the ones you see in the orange label table do presume that every single student that's impacted by the projected reassignment goes to the new school and we know with these generous stability rules the reality will be some the reality excuse me will be somewhere in the middle I can see a bunch of questions coming in so I'm going to start going a little bit faster so we can get to those questions um a couple of Middle School changes that are recommended in your area we just wanted to provide awareness for any of you that might be impacted by these as a result of the opening of filon Grove and some other realignments we've identified one small area that's hanging out inside the current Apex Middle School based attendance area that's a Remnant it's the only neighborhood that's going to Apex friendship middle but not also going to Apex friendship Elementary and Apex Friendship High in this region so the idea is to align this with their peers and to move forward into Apex middle I believe they're in that sort of Scots Ridge area um and so this would allow those families to have that continuity of cohort with their friends and go forward into middle school together again since this is existing to existing it would be the most generous stability rule so any student who could provide their own transportation would be more than welcome to finish out at Apex friendship middle and that just the new families would need to start at Apex and here you can see this does provide a little bit of relief to the capped uh Apex friendship Middle School which uh would then maybe make some room for students not so many students to have to be overflowed or capped out and then a couple of technical changes in this region when Woods Creek Elementary was opened the attent was that all of the woods Greek Elementary base attendance area would also move forward to left Road Middle by base assignment um and in this year when we were doing our assessment of last year's plan we realized this one small little area right here remained assigned to Apex middle so it's the only neighborhood in the entire Woods Creek Elementary base attendance area that's not moving forward to lkin so as a technical correction we wanted to bring this in so that that cohort continuity could be achieved for for this entire school um in addition with the opening of Woods Creek Elementary in the past Holly Springs Elementary is basic attendance area was split in terms of Middle School between lkin Road middle and holly bridge Middle with the opening of Woods Creek any portion of their old base that used to go to lkin is now part of the Woods Creek Elementary base attendance area so what's left of the Holly Springs um Elementary base attendance area all goes to Holly Ridge Middle with the exception of this two little spaces right here currently these are not zoned as residential so there's no students impacted by this recommendation but we want to get ahead in the event that in the future there is a resoning in this area if anybody were to become a student in this area we'd want them to be able to move forward with their cohort and go on to Holly Ridge Middle so again I sort of refer to these as technical technical Corrections just to get ahead of some cohort continuity concerns that might face us in the future as you can see here it's not a significant impact on any of the schools as as I mentioned there's not very many students in in either area all right calendar application changes so the last thing that we have to bring before the board is if for some reason we want to change the calendar application school for an area or remove a calendar application school for an area we need to bring that to the board as that is as seen as an assignment change in the last couple of assignment plans or enrollment plans we have done some pretty drastic changes whole base attendance areas not being able to have transportation to the opposite calendar from their base that's not to say that you can't ask for that it's just we're no longer providing transportation and again that's just largely in response to the um bus driver shortage that everyone is keenly aware of so what you'll see in this year's plan is instead of anything that's based on trying to you know truly truly reduce all those Transportation impacts because we made a significant impact last year and the year before this year's changes are all directly related to those assignment recommendations you saw earlier so by way of example on this top to row currently there's a portion of the Apex Elementary base attendance area that sees Laurel Park Elementary as its multi-track year round option that part of the Apex Elementary base attendance area is currently proposed to become part of the pleasant Plaines base attendance area which as you know is being recommended to be a multi-track yearound school therefore this attendance area won't need a multi-track year round option because it's base assigned to a multi-track school so you'll see that that na pop up which basically means they'll just no longer be a multirack year round option for the address because the base is multi-track year round if the families are interested in a traditional calendar they would use the transfer process and look for a school that perhaps they could provide transportation to in a different example the area that's currently assigned to bacham Elementary that's being proposed to be part of the Penny Road Elementary based attendance area currently sees Laurel Park as its multi-track yearound option however all the students at Penny Road actually see Oak Grove is their multi-track year round option so for um cohort continuity we wanted to align that and and and make that switch so that families would be able to follow together as a cohort into either of those two schools the rest of the ones that you see on this slide are related to schools that are not in your region but they're the same types of impacts um again not very many in your region to be impacted here's where you do see some significant impacts but again if you're currently at Olive Chapel multi track year round Elementary School and your basis uh your your traditional calendar option is bacham well if you're base assigned to bacham you won't need that as a traditional option so as I stated at the board for anybody who had a chance to review the presentation I'd really love for these would just be technical Corrections that we take care of on behalf of the board but because they're part of that address lookup and you're seeing an assignment change or a transportation level change we do bring them to the board for review and approval I've seen a couple people try to raise their hands as a reminder we won't be using that feature in today's session so please continue to use the Q&A feature we're going to get to those questions very rapidly at the middle school level there's no impacts in your region for any of these calendar application changes and the ones that you see on this screen are specifically related to those calendar changes I mentioned earlier at Pine Hollow and uh Roseville middle all right we're going to get to questions rapidly I just want to let you know where we are in the timeline here's where we are the next time we go to the board is October 15th and that's where we'll share a review of all the information we're Gathering From sessions like this the thought Exchange change and our upcoming public information session but I do want to remind uh alert everyone that there has been a change to the approval date so if you were ping and finally tuned in on that first day on September 3rd we were recommending a November 12th approval date the board however has decided that would be their public hearing date so that's just push the plan just a little bit so the official approval date won't be till November 26 and here's where we are in the public engagement timeline this is where we are today if you know if anyone who couldn't join us today that might benefit from a session like this please encourage them to join us tomorrow we'll be doing a general overview of the entire plan as well as focusing on some of those Raleigh area recommendations and then we also have our first open house in in quite some time that we're going to host at Herbert aens Road Middle School as a quick reminder this is not the public hearing that's the November 12th event this is an opportunity to talk with academics Athletics Transportation before and after school care special program special education programs about any questions you have about transitioning to a new school um so and then we'll even have facilities people there and we'll talk more about that but I I really saw a bunch of questions coming in so I'm GNA stop for a moment remind everybody to check the website for all of the information we've shared today if you've still got questions that you haven't posted yet please keep using the question feature Eric I'm gonna give it to you and take a drink of water and then we'll get rolling that would be good because it'll give me an opportunity to level set 4H our question folks there have been a lot of different things posted and we want to answer as much as we possibly can however many people have put their individual situations in uh simply made statements about not wanting certain things to happen or wanting other things to be considered those will certainly be reviewed our Q&A tonight though is to answer questions about this um and not to talk about your individual situations that's that's something we can handle at a different time you're certainly welcome to put them in but as the public Q&A Again part of the objective is that this needs to be anonymous and so it's not talking about your individual situation but also this is an opportunity to ask questions about this versus this is the stated opinion we'll take those and we'll take a look at them every bit of feedback gets looked at I can absolutely promise you that from years of of being involved in this process your feedback will be looked at but let's get to questions that revolve around let's start with stability will students who will students who will not begin kindergarten until 2026 and 20128 be included in the stability plan so it's sort of a yes and no depending all right so the short answer is maybe the long answer is if it's a student who does not have an older student attending that school so um I'm going to use the Olive Chapel tobacum as my example if I have an older student at ol of Chapel who's eligible under the stability rules and I put in the transfer and I get the older student to stay and by the time that kindergartener is getting ready to enter that older student is still there then what you'll use as the regular transfer window for our regular policy on putting siblings together at the same school we don't have the ability to sort of give you a pre- stability transfer prior to the student registering or enrolling so so it's it's a bit of a yes and a no if however that younger student is going to be the first in the family to attend school and is never no no one in the family has ever attended Alla Chapel then the initial assignment would be to Bam um you certainly could put in a transfer but knowing the current situation in the captain crowding levels the school it would be highly unlikely that our staff could approve it but I will say that those transfers that we review in March are always based on your individual hardships so please make sure that you explain you know specifically what what it's going on in your family that there are always exceptions and certainly the board um can review those as well if they're eligible for an appeal so the short answer you've got an older student it won't be through the stability transfer it'll be through oh hang on sorry my computer's trying to restart okay stopped it um that would have been terrible um if you've got that older student that's there and that younger student's going to be there at the same time as the older student then just use the regular transfer period in the future um if however you've got a rising kindergartener who's getting ready to start in 25 I do want to do a quick Public Service Announcement our pre-registration or pre-enrollment process will start around mid- October I want to say it's the 14th or 15th Eric can correct me if he's got the specific date um you can get them pre-registered so that by the time the stability window opens you already have an ID number for that student and you can go ahead and take care of that transfer them so there's a couple of different ways to go around that but for 26 and 28 you'd want to use the regular transfer window and it'll just depend on your personal circumstance as to whether or not they're um able to join that older sibling or not October 14 is the current date things are supposed to open assuming everything goes as planned all right I have a student assigned to Pleasant planes per the proposal but my other goes to a traditional High School holiday plans don't allow us to plan for vacations can the elementary student continue in the current base location okay um so depending on the age of the student maybe right so if it's an Rising fourth or fifth grade student then yes they'd be eligible under those stability rules to stay at their current assigned school if they're not a rising fourth or fifth grader or don't have that older student to attach to then they would initially be assigned to the new school and if everything goes forward as it's currently drafted let's just for you know conversation sake Pleasant planes would be year round you would still be El able to and eligible to participate in all of our other application processes just not the stability transfer so you could still participate in the magnet process or the traditional you request a traditional calendar school that meets your needs through the regular transfer process I just can't guarantee that there'll be Transportation provided and I can't guarantee that we can approve all of them of course um as we do have space limitations in some of our schools but you still certainly are able to put in a request using the magnet application period or the traditional official transfer window that's March I'm looking to air it for confirmation March 4ish umch thir through 14th thank you um and so that'll be a 10day window so you will still have those available to you you just may not be able to get that guaranteed transfer through the stability transfer if you're not in that set of rules if you don't meet the eligibility requirement for the stability r i don't fully understand the def of stability it left out moving children from traditional to year round which destabilizes our family um will we end up with two children on two different tracks oh tracks okay so if we're talking about the possibility that you might have one student on a multi-track year round calendar and one student on a traditional calendar that does happen throughout our district more regularly than we'd like but it's kind of where we are just as a quick reminder at the elementary level there's some very specific class-size legislation that we must adhere to you may be familiar with it at kindergarten there's an 18 student class size ratio of you know 18 to1 at first grade at 16 and at second and third grade at 17 students those same types of class- siiz legislation um impacts are not applied to any of the other grades in our district so at the elementary level we do have to rely more and more on multirack yearound schools to be able to to accommodate all of those students um and meet those class siiz demands um if you've heard presentations in the past the year that that legislation was approved it it was as if we lost thousands of Elementary seats just by like a snap of a finger because of the way we had to start configuring all of our classes so it is possible that for a period of time there could be families that have a multitrack year around elementary school but then traditional middle and high school and that's that's a question that we're continuing to explore as a district um so it is possible but as far as tracks um no our schools will work with you if you're at two schools that are both operating multi-track year round calendar so maybe you're at lkin or Salem on a multi-track year round in your region those principles will work together to keep your family on the same track so it won't be that one school will be track two and one will be track three or something like that they'll work to keep you all on the same track but the there is a possibility that some families might have a multi-track here around Elementary student and traditional middle or High School no older sibling if we provide our own transportation can we apply for a stability transfer so the stability transfers are very specific to the rules of the board adopts um so again as a reminder board policy says just fifth grade and younger siblings just for the one year that that student is in fifth grade at the elementary level at the middle school level it's eth same rules and at high school it's 12th same rules for each enrollment plan based on those situations and the conditions and and sort of what we can manage as a district at that time the board approves specific stability rules specific to the reassignment for that plan and those rules are only in place for that one point in time so if your student is not eligible under the board approved stability rules then you would not get the invitation to participate in the stability transfer process you still can partic participate in all the other application processes we have as I mentioned earlier like the magnet application process or the regular official transfer sort of hardship transfer process those would still be available to you but the ability to get the guaranteed transfer to your current School through the stability transfer you'd have to meet those requirements as per the approved rules from the board for this particular plane students moving from traditional to yearround Elementary but our base middle and Highs are traditional calendars what stability do those students get or families get for calendar yeah um it's it's an amaz it's it's a wonderful question that we need to keep sort of reviewing and assessing and we get it changing calendar can be like you know can can be just as destabilizing as perhaps changing schools and and and we do understand that we're trying everything we can to try to reduce those impacts on families but the reality is we have a high growth area we have limited seats in schools we have families who are moving into neighborhoods and can't even go to the school they're assigned to and they're being sent to an overflow school um because we're just trying to deal with the rapid growth that's happened in the region and so we're trying our hardest with the resources that we have to get ahead of some of that growth where possible and to address that growth were possible but we do realize that a change in calendar um in addition to a change in school can feel can feel almost like a double impact we do understand that um as I mentioned the board will still make available to you those other options so if you're looking for a magnet or if you're looking for a traditional calendar somewhere else you still have the option to apply for those we're just really reduced in our ability as a district to guarantee some of those seats um and of course to be able to provide transpar ation I will say that middle school students um I I think in this area actually I know in this area with the current set of recommendations it will create a base calendar misalignment for some families meaning those students at Olive Chapel perhaps that are currently um assigned to lkin middle or Salem Middle they might be going to a traditional Elementary and still be base assigned to a year- round Middle School we get that we know that we understand that uh the reason for leaving those middle School assignments alone is multiple reasons one it sounds crazy but the opening of Parkside Middle on the Northern side of this region of the county is going to have Domino and cascading impacts throughout this region and we didn't want to get ahead of that proposal and then have families assigned you know have changes in Middle School assignment multiple times in a short period of time we wanted to really make sure we knew what was happening with Parkside Middle before we came and changed any um areas here in addition you'll notice that at the middle School level in particular we're maintaining all the calendar application options in this region because we want to be able to make sure families have that ability at the middle school level to get that alignment for their fam's K8 so you'll have the option to either stay at your multitrack your around middle school or apply for that traditional calendar seat most likely at Apex middle um in this region so that is done intentionally with the idea of just let's take a breath let's let the elementary proposal go through if it does go through asra and then we'll come back and start looking at more permanent changes at the middle school level to give families that longer stability in calendar over time why does Olive Chapel get special stability rules and S and Scott Ridge Elementary doesn't when it's not capped when it's not even capped Scots Ridge Elementary is capped and capping it is one of our cap schools so I want to correct that statement um Olive Chapel Apex friendship and Scots Ridge in this region are all cap schools if you go a little bit further north White Oak is also capped if you go a little farther south Oakview is also capped you're in a heavily capped region of the district um at the elementary level um the reason for the changes isn't so much about Olive Chapel as it is where the student is being assigned to so any student that being assigned into Pleasant Plains Elementary will have different stability rules because as a district we need to ensure that a sufficient number of students attend the new school to be able to offer all the academic programming that your students deserve and so in order to do that we have to have a a certain number of students in the building to ensure that we can have the appropriate number of teachers elective specials um and all those other services that are required things like your special education teachers your AIG teachers your music your art um all your media coordinator all of those things that go into building a proper School environment um if we if we provide two generous of stability rules in the opening of a new school there won't be a sufficient population to be able to make sure that all of those services are available for students and so that's why the rules are slightly different it's not so much about the sending school it's really more about the receiving School the proposal has Olive Chapel yearound students moving to bwam traditional then feeding into lkin year round then Apex friendship high school traditional how can all of these calendar changes be justified with the stability pillar and and again I think I addressed that a couple of questions back so this right now we do recognize that that's in place part of the reason for leaving the assignment to lkin is any family who chooses stability and stays at Olive Chapel then they'd have that lkin option so they could keep their family on their multi-track year round calendar in addition in this region we're maintaining the traditional calendar application choice at the middle school level for students and families so that if you'd like to align to the traditional calendar we'll do everything we can to help your family do that as well in the future we will come back to this region and make some more permanent adjustments at the middle school level that'll make a little bit more sense because you're right going from traditional to multitrack you're round middle to Traditional High School that that is not a path that we want to sustain as a district it will be possible that we'll have multi-track Elementary going to traditional middle and Traditional High School that will become a little bit more normal um as a district for us moving forward at least for the for the time being while we're still managing um and responding to high growth but that that traditional to multitrack traditional is not something we'd like to sustain as a district so where we can't sustain it we will provide that traditional option at the middle school level to try to give families that ability to get that K8 or or 612 calendar alignment there are uh moving into planning process and assignment there are a couple of questions about why specific areas are and are not assigned to some places uh Jordan point to a exex friendship Elementary why is it not assigned or yeah sure um candidly we have no space at Apex friendship Elementary to add anybody so if you're not already assigned to Apex friendship Elementary as a district we cannot in good conscience add any more neighborhoods to that attendance area at this time in fact there are one or two neighborhoods that are being proposed to come out of Apex friendship Elementary and go to the new Pleasant Plains and we do recognize this is one of those few except where they're going to go to a school it's a little bit farther away it's not significantly farther but it is a little bit farther away and and we do understand um that that I don't even know how to say it doesn't feel good right um we we do understand that but Apex friendship Elementary much like all of Chapel Elementary is dealing with such growth and crowding that we have to find a way to provide relief to their base attendance area um and so that's why one of the recommendations was to do that but but candidly there will be no recommendations to move students stents into Apex friendship Elementary or into Olive Chapel Elementary for quite some time until we are able to manage the growth that's happening in those base attendance areas more effectively why is SE growth's Farms redistributed to Penny rather than Apex Elementary that's a really good question um the the reasoning there was because Apex Elementary recently just had its cap removed and it does still have some growth in its attendance area so from a staff perspective we were very hesitant to add back students that might put it back in a situation where it would need to be capped again we were trying to provide stability for that school and recognizing that the Transportation Route and there's a neighborhood right just right up the road that's already going to Penny Road from a cohort and sort of community continuity perspective a geographically it seemed to make sense that if it was going to need to leave bacham that it it should join Penny Road are there instances when concerns that have been addressed have been taken into out and the proposal was actually changed absolutely um in fact right now there's several recommendations that were evaluating as a planning team um that have come through and and we're confident that there'll probably be some recommendations during that October 15th presentation that reflect a responsiveness to that feedback um in years past last year it was a bit drastic but there was an example where we needed to uh make an assignment change from a couple of multi-track year round elementary schools into a tradition uh school and at that point the community was so supportive of multitrack and we could use the additional capacity that we actually came back based on all of that feedback and made a recommendation to convert Pleasant Grove Elementary which you may not be familiar with but it's in the sort of moris full um Raleigh airport area to convert it to multitrack in response to that family feedback that if you're going to assign us from our current school to a different school can you at least let us maintain our calendar we were able to accommodate that request so yes quite regular there are adjustments that are made wholes sales wide sweeping changes most likely not but adjustments based on feedback that make sense and support District initiatives um and can get you know what we'd all like to call a win-win you know support family feedback and Community feedback as well as address the needs of the district um we we do take those into consideration yes a number of people have asked the question would you consider making Pleasant planes traditional can you briefly review the position on Pleasant planes sure um right now as staff um and I'm going to I'm gonna take a moment of license I'm gonna ask you to close your eyes a second while I go back in [Music] time come on there we go just I want to give you a quick reminder of where the new schools in the region are coming um here's where Pleasant planes is coming you'll notice Woods Creek is already open and we're still facing all the crowd in concerns that we're talking about now Woods Creek is on the south side of US1 so it's not quite in the same region there is not a single Elementary School in this region coming in the next seven or so years the current capital Improvement plan goes out to 2030 31 So based on what we're already talking about in terms of growth crowding continued growth continued residential development continued impacts in this region as staff we just really feel compelled to support the idea of getting as much capacity as we can out of this building day one so that's really the rationale similar rationale for those in this region that are being impacted by these two schools they do however have one more school coming online but they're in a similar situation no elementary schools coming through the 3031 year at this time and so in order to accommodate all the growth in the region we just really feel like we need to have that capacity in hand so that we don't have to cap a school you know one or two years into operation why are the plans not prepared further in advance great question we've been getting that uh feedback a lot during our public engagement sessions this last spring I we I hate to give a history lesson we used to do these in December and the board would approve them in February um so by the fact that we're doing them in September this year we're even doing them two weeks earlier than we normally would do so we are slowly but incrementally pulling the planning and release of initial drafts a little bit earlier in the year so it may sound crazy to you but we used to not give the initial draft until sometime in December so the fact that we're now doing it in September already reflects responsiveness to that feedback that we're pulling that timeline even earlier um we are going to continue to evaluate how early we can provide these initial drafts for feedback and review as we continue to improve our planning processes in the future but please know that this release is the earliest release we've ever had and Susan part of the question also seems to indicate that there may be um the thought that nobody's thinking about this years prior can you address that for a moment oh certainly um so part of what we tried to walk you through with that six-step process for those of you that joined us early on is we have been looking at projected growth and and forecasted growth in this region for 20 30 plus years and we re-evaluate and readjust those enrollment forecasts literally every single year so keep in mind that when a school is opening that means that at least five if not 10 years ago we identified that the growth was coming in the region the challenge for us as a district is we're an amazing place to live work and grow and play and so the rapid rate of residential development has just it's just outpacing our ability as a county to build new schools so we're doing our absolute best to try to track and be prepared for and recognize the growth that's coming and get ahead of it as much as possible we just don't release the individual assignment areas until that year before because so much can change I'm sure many of you are familiar you know a subdivision is supposed to pop up and it gets delayed for a couple of years one that was supposed to take three years starts getting houses you know sent out for mortgage within a year and a half so there are always some Nuance that can change as we get closer to the opening date of a school so we are hesitant to establish full-blown attendance areas for schools too far in advance because we want to be able to take advantage of the latest information before we release an attendance area but we have been very thoughtfully thinking about the opening of pleasant planes for n on 10 to 15 years and all the school in the district I don't have child care for my children to attend different schools on different schedules do I have an option to keep my child in a Traditional School great this is similar to some of the questions we had before but very specific and nuanced this is what that U March hardship transfer request is for so that you can really Express that specific hardship that you have as a family and we'll do everything that we can to help support you and getting your students on the same calendar um don't forget that there's always an opportunity to try to get them both on year round or to try to get them both on traditional our magnet schools almost all of them operate on a traditional calendar there's handful of exceptions so there's a lot of different ways for you to potentially get a traditional calendar option and many of of our magnet schools particularly for this region do come with some level of District transportation so if you've never thought about one of our magnet schools that may be something that solves for your family and gives your students access to some pretty amazing academic programming if that's not what's going to work for your family you can still use the traditional hardship or official request for transfer period in March to let our uh staff know and those are all evaluated individually magnet applications are through Lottery but the um individual the hardship or official request for transfer requests are all done on an individual basis to based on your individual circumstances and evaluated against a portion of board policy 4150 why does New Hill get rezoned every year um I don't know that it gets rezoned every year but it certainly is a high growth area that has um definitely popped up um in recent years we are um continuously evaluating how frequently each area is being reassigned um it is our goal my it is my goal as a planner to try to help give you as much stability as possible as a family um as a district we don't have a Harden fast policy but sort of our rule of thumb is no more frequently than every three years and I know what that sounds like when I say that that sounds absolutely terrible that sounds like too frequent of a reassignment but that's sort of the middle ground that we're kind of heading in our high growth areas if by chance we've made a recommendation to an area that impacts them more frequently than every 3 years we'll make those adjustments in O um in our presentation in October um however do keep in mind that as a district again I know how it sounds I know how it feels as a family but we do take that into consideration at each level so it is possible that an area maybe had a high school change and then maybe had a middle school change and it's now having an elementary change those are considered three different adjustments but we are very keenly tracking cohorts to see what the impact has been on an individual cohort of students and if we do discover that we're impacting the same cohort of students multiple times we'll try to make some adjustments to account for that so I'm glad someone asked that question because that is something we deeply investigate during this time period we we try to get all of it leading up to the initial draft and then we deeply investigate it during this period as well with the last about five minutes that we have for questions I want to make sure that we get to some of the other categories sure so first first with safety and transportation are there any plans to add a new elementary school near New Hill it seems like there's a lot of growth there which would relieve places like Olive Chapel and Scotts Ridge yeah um as I mentioned a couple of questions ago I'll I'll actually show this map because it has all of the schools on it um these are the only schools that are projected to open for 25 26 this one is actually a high school um as you can see there is just there's nothing in this area we do have a piece of property in this region that we've acquired ahead of time sort of responsive to these remarks uh the challenge is it's just not ready for development yet there's not enough infrastructure to it no water sewer electric that kind of thing so we do what we call land bank we do try to get ahead of growth wherever we possibly can and so there is some land in the area that we already do have as a district in that bank it's just not ready for the capital Improvement plan to be able to turn it into a proper school until sometime after 2030 31 but we are keeping an eye on this region and looking to identify um where and when we could potentially pop up a new school again this is part of the reason for the year round recommendation because that stretches that timeline for us a little bit as well will Jordan Point have a traditional calendar option with Transportation if this goes through currently as I mentioned in a couple of questions before based on our uh challenges with transportation and bus driver shortages it's becoming more and more and more difficult for us to guarantee transportation to opposite calendar options either multitrack or traditional um so at this point in time I cannot say that there'd be a guaranteed option with Transportation uh so I just I want to be honest I want to be genuine there uh but there will be options for families to request a traditional calendar either through like I said the magnet application process and some of those as I mentioned do come with District transportation so that might be an option that would help families if the traditional calendar is really crucial um or you can put in a official request for transfer and of course you'd have to figure out um the transportation on your own and and that I do recognize is an obstacle that some families just can't um manage we get it it's just a conflict where we just can't find a solution for all of all the needs moving in to kind of general questions about planning and assignment does wcpss and Wake County toown Planning work together to understand new communities and families that are enrolling yes and I will say those relationships have gotten better each year if you're not familiar with how it works um in our district the count the the School District partners with the County Commissioners to get funding and to get bonds approved so that we can build our new schools and do major Renovations and that sort of thing however the municipal planners are responsible for their own types of development residential development Transportation infrastructure commercial development that sort of thing our municipalities Holly Springs Apex carry you know those names that you're familiar with they don't have specific responsibilities for building schools or setting aside land for schools it's just not part of how our governance works in the state of North Carolina so over the last several years we've developed much better and stronger Partnerships with our Municipal planners to say hey let's let's back feed each other so when we're developing a new school project we're partnering with the municipal planners to make sure that all the roadway infrastructure is in place that carpool is going to work that the bus routes are going to work and we're you know partnering in those ways making sure that there's access to the school and that sort of thing on the other side of it that long range forecast that I told you about that's been a huge Improvement um with that relationship with our Municipal Partners the only way that we can get this forecast that I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation is because we go out to our Municipal planners and they openly share with us what they know and what they're forecasting as far as residential development commercial development that sort of thing in their areas we're actively going through that process this fall to get the updated numbers for the next forecast which will be released in February and that ongoing dialogue has really created a much healthier relationship between us and our Municipal Partners in fact there's two municipalities now I can say which is double as many as we had last year at this time that are actively seeking District input before approving residential developments in terms of is there space is there availability so those Partnerships are getting stronger and stronger each year okay we there are are a number of other questions that obviously people would love to have answered and will be addressed if there are purely questions that are Q&A that um that are we can anonymize at some level and really apply to the larger group but uh at this point we want to move back into our closing section for this meeting and so pause for a second I think just for clarity what he's saying is that if you'll go to our enrollment proposal site the 2025 enrollment proposal site and find the section marked frequently asked questions any questions that aren't already there with a response that you've asked tonight we're going to be updating and really beefing that section up over the next week or so so any question we couldn't get to to Eric's point that we can generalize to a larger scale if you've given us some very specific information that's very new resp about your student we'll see if a staff member can reach out and help you with that um but we're going to get those questions and responses in that FAQ portion the frequently asked questions portion of this top website here this one right here thank you Eric sorry no certainly certainly and thank you everyone for attending this evening we know that there's a lot of um information that comes at you really fast lot of other things that you need to think about and you want to know as you go forward we hope that what we've been able to present to you in this session tonight has been informative and that you better understand the recommendations included in the initial draft of the plan separately we really want your open and honest participation and appreciate that your input and your feedback is vital to the refinement of the enrollment plan remember we will present a summary of the feedback received and any recommended adjustments to the proposal of of the board um sorry to the proposal to the board on October 15th with a final vote that is expected on November 26th the thought exchange itself will remain open through September 29th and we encourage you to continue to post comments rate comments and explore the exchange thank you very much for attending this evening we hope that you enjoy the remainder of your evening thank you everyone for joining us