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Superintendent outlines multi‑month plan to redraw elementary attendance boundaries
Summary
Superintendent Dr. Lori Putnam presented a plan and timeline to redesign elementary attendance boundaries to address overcrowding and underutilization; the process will use a design team, a larger input team, TeamWorks mapping software and aim for a board decision in December.
Superintendent Dr. Lori Putnam presented a multi‑step plan to redesign attendance boundaries for the district’s eight elementary schools, saying the last comprehensive boundary review occurred in the 1990s and demographic and program changes make a review necessary.
Putnam said the administration has observed uneven enrollment across elementary sites, preschool access issues, and transportation inefficiencies tied to specialized programs such as immersion and newcomer services. She described the review structure: a 10–12 person design team (administrators and union leadership) will develop scenarios; a broader 40–50 person input team of staff, families and community members will review and refine 2–3 recommended scenarios; and the district will host school‑based public meetings in November prior to board consideration.
The district will use TeamWorks boundary‑modeling software to test scenario impacts (enrollment, ride times, number of families affected) and cited a data‑gathering phase that includes instructional capacity (distinct from fire‑marshal capacity), projections from municipalities, and class‑size guidelines. Putnam emphasized planning assumptions and guiding principles: preserve programming access (preschool, immersion, newcomer programs), respect neighborhood identity and walkability, maximize facility utilization, and minimize transportation and fiscal impacts.
Timeline and decision points described: design team meetings begin in August; community input and refinement continue in October; Putnam expects a board discussion and presentation at the first December meeting and a decision (final vote) at the second December meeting, with an implementation target effective Jan. 1, 2026, to align with 2026–27 enrollment. Putnam noted that elementary changes could affect secondary feeder patterns and that secondary boundaries are not the focus of this review but could require later attention.
Putnam also said parochial and charter schools are not affected by these boundary proposals: parochial boundaries were recently reset and charter schools draw from the entire 250‑square‑mile district.
No board vote was taken; Putnam asked for board feedback on guiding principles and on the planned timeline.
Speakers appearing in this account are named and attributed to their remarks in the Aug. 6 transcript.
