Boone County Schools faces redistricting decision as Longbranch reaches 110% capacity

Boone County Schools Board of Education will consider in October whether to pursue elementary school redistricting , after hearing from residents who voiced urgent concerns about overcrowding at Longbranch Elementary School.

Redistricting was not agendized for the Sept. 10 meeting, but came up repeatedly as Longbranch parents and staff raised the issue during public comment. A Longbranch parent has also launched a petition to address overcrowding that’s already reached nearly 500 signatures.

Longbranch Elementary, located in Union, is currently at 110% capacity, 89 students over its 900-student cap, according to staff who spoke at the board meeting Thursday night.

After public input and board discussion, Superintendent Jeff Hauswald said the board would ultimately have to choose whether to prioritize redistricting or overhaul transportation within current district boundaries.

A district committee is currently halfway through a yearlong process of trying to find efficiencies in the district’s transportation system within current districts, faced with rising gas prices and more than 35 unstaffed routes.

“Do you want us to spend the next three months or whatever it’s going to take to have this conversation about redistricting, or do we want to look at how we want to accommodate, try to reduce some of these burdens in terms of our diesel consumption, try and reduce our number of buses?” Hauswald said.

The district already opted to redistrict this year, faced with similar capacity issues at Ballyshannon Middle School. The decision involved a multi-month public input process.

Public comment

Public comment focused on the consequences of overcrowding, including reduced time for school activities like lunch and arts programming and the inability to complete fire drills in a timely manner.

“Our teachers are doing an incredible job with an impossible situation, but their resilience cannot become the district’s excuse for allowing them to continue carrying this burden,” said Guiliana Heath, a Longbranch parent and a substitute teacher.

All comments stressed the need for an immediate, proactive solution rather than waiting until 2030 to construct a new 600-student elementary school on the Ballyshannon Middle School campus, as outlined in the district’s facilities plan released this year.

According to Board Member Jesse Parks, the school is currently waiting on two mobile units to house four additional classrooms.

But parents argued it is a band-aid solution that doesn’t address overcrowding in the cafeteria, hallways, bathrooms and even during recess, when some students spend time in the bus loop.

Regina Melvin, who has taught music at Longbranch since it opened in 2010, said Longbranch students now receive arts programming only once every eight days, rather than once a week like most other elementary students throughout the district.

The programming is also limited in scope because the school’s music and arts classrooms have been converted into regular classrooms for more than a year, according to Melvin.

“Please do what is right for our children’s education and redistrict now,” Melvin said.

One parent in the district, Antoine Smith-Rouse, specifically asked the board to consider redistricting not just Longbranch, but all Boone County elementary schools.

“I make this ask, knowing full well that my family will likely be districted out of the school that we know and love, where we can no longer sit idly by where our students and educators are negatively impacted,” Smith-Rouse said.

Board response

After hearing from the public and Hauswald, the board agreed the first step is to decide whether it wants to study options for elementary school redistricting in October before it considers voting on it.

Parks cautioned against the suggestion of countywide redistricting, saying the decision will hit close to home.

“Can you imagine buying a $600,000 house, and you read on Zillow, you’re in the Longbranch district … and you buy your home, and then a guy like me takes that away from you,” Parks said. Calling out Smith-Rouse’s comment, he said the district should maybe ask for volunteers to redistrict.

Board Member Carolyn Hankins Wolfe said she wanted more information on the issue overall.

“I don’t think I’m looking at a vote for next month, I think I’m looking at more of us having a complete discussion on the options that we could provide Longbranch parents,” Wolfe said.

She also said that though she’s fielded calls from Longbranch parents, she wasn’t aware of the full scope of challenges until Thursday’s meeting, specifically the loss of arts instructional time.

“I want to make sure that we’re not leaving kids out,” she said.