Community Corner

Parkway School District Approves Boundary Changes

Impacted families will be notified within the next week.

The Parkway School District board of education voted Wednesday to approve redrawn school attendance boundaries, effective in August.

The changes will impact Creve Coeur students attending Craig and Ross elementary school, and ultimately feeder schools at the middle school and high school levels to combat overcrowding in the northern part of the district.

The new attendance boundaries will move some 246 elementary age students. Another 230 middle- and high school students will be re-assigned, but they have the option to continue at northside schools through graduation.

Find out what's happening in Creve Coeurwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Officials said changes were necessary to spread around overcrowding in some schools when there was a dearth of students in another.

"It had to happen," said Desi Kirchhofer, Parkway's secondary assistant superintendent who oversaw the re-districting process.

Find out what's happening in Creve Coeurwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Most younger students would transfer to Riverbend Elementary, from Craig, McKelvey and Ross elementary schools. Riverbend will nearly double in size to about 412 students, but still have fewer students than the other three schools.

Officials said some schools were physically larger from building additions, and had more capacity.

"It balances the enrollment with schools of comparable size," Kirchhofer said of the shuffling. The changes were made in keeping with the notion of "neighborhood schools," he said.

The district got buy-in from families early in the process with

Affected families ultimately provided little resistance after the district agreed to provide a minimum of three years of transportation for older students who don't want to transfer.

How it works:

  • 4th and 6th graders must attend new assigned school
  • 5th graders may opt for "special assignment" to avoid changing schools
  • no new tranfers will be accepted in schools at capacity
  • grades 7-12 students will be assigned to new schools, but may opt out with "special assignment" request to remain at northside schools.

The school district expectsto notify impacted families within the next week.

"We all know that change is hard," said school board Director Dee Mogerman, who seconded the measure. Vice-President Beth Feldman made the motion in favor of the plan.

Parkway officials hope to hear decisions from families as early as possible in cases with the option to stay put. The district makes hiring decisions on teaching staff beginning in January.

Superintendent of Schools Keith Marty praised the leadership and 33-member committee that worked out the re-districting plan.

"I've been through this process before. This was the very, very best process," Marty said.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Creve Coeur