Tracy Robbins, an elementary director for the Davis County School District, presented a proposed boundary map for the district’s new elementary school and asked the board to approve a process that will take public comment before a final decision.

Robbins said the goals of the study include “to balance student enrollment across the affected schools” and to “streamline junior high and high school feeder patterns as much as possible.” She said planners used updated enrollment tracking and community council input to draw preliminary lines intended to return students to Buffalo Point and to create 100% feeder patterns from affected elementaries into their junior highs.

The proposal grew out of community council meetings in May and June and board-approved planning work begun in November. Robbins told the board the district used the most current enrollment numbers, noting an unexpected enrollment surge of nearly 100 students who shifted from charter schools into the neighborhood when Island View opened; that change prompted including Island View in this study even though it had not been part of the original area.

Board members pressed staff on the details. Board member Miss Hogan asked whether affected elementaries would now be “100% feeders” into the same junior high; Robbins confirmed that the map as drawn makes Cook, Syracuse, Buffalo, Island View, the new school and Bluff Ridge feed fully to the same junior high lines in that area. Robbins said the changes were intended as a long-term solution that “should last for three to five years even in growing areas.”

District communications staff will post the proposed map on the district website and open an online comment form; Terry Hall of communications will send an email to every family affected linking them to the materials. The district scheduled an open house for Sept. 10 from 7 to 8 p.m. at Bluff Ridge, will report results of public comment to the board on Sept. 16, hold a public hearing at the Oct. 7 board meeting, and expects to bring a first and final reading to the board by Nov. 18 so that new boundaries would be in place for the next August opening.

Robbins and other staff cautioned that numbers may continue to change and that planners will keep tracking enrollment through the study. Board members asked that public communications explicitly note the district’s priority to create consistent feeder patterns; Robbins and another staff member said they would add that detail to the website materials.

Next steps for the district are: post the map and open the feedback form, review and (if needed) tweak lines based on public comment, hold the scheduled open house, present results to the board, take public comment at the Oct. 7 meeting, and return Nov. 18 for a first and final reading.