School district seeks attendance zone help

The Coeur d’Alene School District Board of Trustees is looking for community members to help map out new attendance zones in preparation for the opening of the Hayden Lake Elementary School.

During its October meeting, the board voted to open the Hayden Lake site as a neighborhood elementary school for the 2017-18 school year, reducing overcrowding in the northern part of the district.

Since the Hayden Lake school will draw students who currently attend Hayden Meadows, Skyway and Atlas Elementary, the district is looking for community members who live in those attendance zones.

Casey Morrisroe, board chair, said he would like to see three or four community members from each of those attendance zones, as well as an administrator and a staff member from each of those schools.

“I think it’s important to have equal representation from all those areas,” he told The Press. “That way, there’s an equal vote.”

The board agreed that changing attendance zones regularly is not ideal.

“We don’t want people moving around all the time, people get attached to their schools,” Morrisroe said. “It’s one of the tougher things we do.”

The attendance zone committee will have to consider things like flexible transfer requests, especially for fifth-graders, and transportation and the length of bus rides from different areas of the community.

Once a committee is assembled, the board will approve membership during its December meeting and give the committee guidelines, such as the short- and long-term plans for the Hayden Lake Elementary and how many students in which grades the district intends to have at the school.

If anyone living in the Hayden Meadows, Skyway and Atlas Elementary attendance zones is interested in serving on the committee, the district asks them to contact the principal of the elementary school in their neighborhood.