The Sweetwater County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees decided to redraw the district’s elementary school boundaries to place Jackson Elementary School students at Monroe Intermediate School next year.
The decision comes a month after the board voted to close Jackson in a cost savings move in anticipation of decreased revenue from the state.
Prior to the vote, Jackson PTO treasurer Irish Kreis, said she hoped the board would decide to redraw the boundaries as it would allow the PTO to continue its work in supporting the students and staff at the school, regardless of where they’re located. Kreis said 49 percent of the PTO budget is spent on student enrichment activities, another 20 percent is spent on supplies, 12 percent is spent on staff support, 11 percent on classroom and school funding, while 8 percent is spent on staff appreciation.
“From Jackson to Monroe, we’re ready to go,” she said.
The board considered two options for its school boundaries, one redrawing the Jackson boundary to send students to the Monroe school, while the other would redraw the boundary to send students to the other elementary schools.
Board member Steve Core asked why they needed to redraw the boundaries if they decide to send Jackson students to Monroe. Donna Little-Kaumo, the district’s superintendent, said the reason they would need to redraw the boundaries is due to Monroe not being included in the elementary school boundaries due to it being an intermediate school. A survey issued by the school district showed 60.1 percent of the 308 respondents prefer redrawing the boundaries that would send Jackson students to Monroe.
Core also noted that Washington Elementary School would lose students off of either proposal. However, the parents of those impacted students can apply for a transfer.
Little-Kaumo said a transfer request window will open today and end Jan. 26, to give parents a chance to decide if they want to transfer their children to another school.
She said parents with special needs children and their siblings have top priority, followed by students who want to complete their fourth and fifth grade years with the classes they’ve previously been placed in. While transfer denials are rare, due to transfer numbers usually equalizing in Green River, Little-Kaumo said parents denied a transfer request also have an appeal process they can utilize.
Sarah Robles, president of the Jackson PTO, said the outcome was what the organization wanted as it will allow the PTO to continue operating. However, PTO treasurer Michelle Bozner thinks upset parents may attempt to transfer their children because they’re not happy with Jackson students going to Monroe, believing the transfer requests could impact student numbers at Monroe.
Other board business
The board voted to elect officers amongst the board members. None of the positions change hands, with Brenda Roosa retaining her role as board chair, Core remaining as the board’s vice chair, Robin Steiss retaining as clerk and John Malone retaining as the board’s treasurer.
Committee assignments were also the same as last year, with Mark Sanders and Roosa being named alternates to the district’s Super 8 committee.
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