Dear Westerville City School District Community:

 

The Board of Education on Monday night approved temporary adjustments to middle school attendance boundaries as a means to address capacity issues at the middle school level. After weeks of discussion and the collection of community input (more than 641 e-mails and feedback gathered during six meetings), the Board approved the administration’s recommendation to select “Option I” as a short-term solution to be implemented for the 2011-12 school year.

 

Fifth-grade students in several communities that historically have attended Genoa Middle School will transition to either Blendon Middle or Heritage Middle School:

  • Fifth-graders who live in the Hill & Dales, Huber Village, Westerwood Village, Springborough, and Brook Run communities will attend Blendon Middle School.
  • Fifth-graders who live in Edmonton Commons, Northland Park Estates, Scotland, Glenview Apartments, and Northland Square Apartments will attend Heritage Middle School.
  • Current 6th & 7th grade students from these neighborhoods that attend Genoa Middle School will be permitted to stay at Genoa to finish middle school.

One of our goals during this process was to minimize the number of families impacted by this temporary adjustment. As a result of the approved plan, approximately 2 percent of the 2011-12 middle school population will experience a change in their school of attendance next year.

 

In all of the e-mails and telephone calls received, and during all of the public meetings held since the introduction of options F, G, H and I, we heard an overwhelming desire for current middle school students to remain at their current school of attendance. The approval of Option I allows us to meet that request while maintaining middle school enrollments that are manageable according to building capacities and anticipated scheduling needs. We also heard a consistent message suggesting that those families being impacted by this initial boundary adjustment should not be impacted by any long-term boundary changes that may be proposed by the district in the near future. We will do our absolute best to honor this suggestion.

 

Open enrollment requests would be considered for any families that, as a result of this short-term boundary change, may have children attending different middle schools. We have identified 13 such families and will consider an open enrollment request for the older child to move from his or her current middle school to attend the new middle school that a younger sibling would be attending next year.

 

In the coming days and weeks, we will be reaching out to all middle school families and those families that will be impacted by this change.  We will work closely with our principals, teachers and support staff to make their transition as smooth as possible.

 

Thank you for your participation in this process. We truly appreciate your involvement.

 

Sincerely,

Mark Hershiser

Assistant Superintendent