Iowa City school board talks boundaries

IOWA CITY - As I reported in today's Gazette, the Iowa City school board last night kicked off its redistricting work.

It was a long meeting at nearly four hours and ran way past my deadline. Board members discussed what their priorities are for redistricting. 

They were using clickers provided by their consultant to vote on a list of them. To see the criteria, click here. They are listed on pages 6-15.

Superintendent Lane Plugge tells me that, after my deadline, the board picked the following as its top choices, in this order:

1. Fiscal considerations – operational costs
2. Projected enrollment and building utilization
3. Neighborhoods intact within attendance areas
4. Demographic considerations

Plugge said the board also discussed the following:

• Asked the redistricting committee to provide multiple scenarios to the board
• The scenarios should include interim solutions to the high school enrollment issue
• The third high school is likely to open later than 2014-15
• The capacity of the third high school should be 1200
• The scenarios should include comprehensive redistricting of boundaries at all grade levels.