The Board, by unanimous vote, adopted tonight a set of new enrollment preferences and a series of school boundary changes. Together, these actions are expected to shift, ultimately, approximately 50 students from chronically oversubscribed White Oaks to chronically undersubscribed Heather.
However, because the changes will be applied only to newly-enrolled kindergarteners, the change will phase in over a period of five ore more years.
In order to maintain some level of “walkability” and proximity there were changes made to Arundel’s and Brittan Acres’ boundaries as well. Families of new kindergarteners who have an older sibling in their “old” school (i.e., within the previous boundaries) will be grandfathered into the “old” school so as to avoid forcing families to take kids to two different elementary schools at the same time.
This was the culmination of a lot of hard work by a lot of people over many months. While by their nature these kinds of shifts are not universally welcomed, I believe the process produced as good a plan as could have been expected.
Thanks to everyone who helped develop the plan, and to the community members who provided valuable feedback over the last couple of months of public hearings and meetings. The adopted plan is the better for all the input.