Iowa City school board switches Hills students, keeps Lincoln the same

Hills Elementary School students will switch to South East Junior High and Lincoln Elementary Students will remain at Northwest Junior High.

The school board voted 5-2 Tuesday night to make those changes, with Michael Shaw and Tuyet Dorau casting the dissenting votes. The decision will take effect next school year with the current class of sixth-graders.

The decision tweaks the boundary plan the board agreed to last spring, which switched Hills and Lincoln students from the West High feeder system to City High to help alleviate high school capacity issues. City High is undercapacity and West High is overcrowded.

Those students were to attend Northwest, which traditionally feeds into West High, as they had been. The students will still eventually land at City High, but now Hills students will go to South East, which feeds into City High.

Hills parents had asked for the change so their kids would not be split from some of their junior high friends.

Some Lincoln parents had also requested the switch, but there was not a consensus. For that reason, Superintendent Stephen Murley had recommended Hills be assigned to South East and Lincoln remain at Northwest.

Board member Mike Cooper said he could understand why parents would want their kids to stay with junior high friends.

“I empathize with that,” he said. “I'd feel the exact same way.”

Dorau said the plan still threatened to overcrowd South East further down the road and leaves Lincoln as the only community significantly affected by redistricting.

South East has about 675 students this year and a capacity of 800. Adding Hills would send an extra 30 seventh- and eighth-graders to South East.

Northwest currently has about 640 students and an 800-student capacity. The other junior high school, North Central, has 400 students and room for 450.

Board members said they wanted to make sure not only that schools are not overcrowded, but also that there is not lots of unused space in buildings. Murley said administrators will monitor enrollment regularly and will come to the board with recommendations when needed.

“We will be planning three, four, five years out so we can let you know what your options are,” he said.

Shaw and Sarah Swisher expressed some redistricting fatigue, saying discussions like Tuesday night's take a lot of energy.

“It's time to move onto other issues,” Swisher said.

As long as there is room, students like those from Lincoln can transfer to South East, but the district will not pay their transportation costs.