The Coatesville Area School District board on Dec. 9 approved a K–8 attendance realignment designed to equalize enrollments and feeder patterns across the district’s elementary and middle schools.

Superintendent Dr. Rybarczyk and district consultants from PowerSchool presented a map and data showing the district will transition to four elementary attendance zones — Kings Highway, Reesville, Rainbow and Doe Run — and two middle-school feeder patterns. The plan calls for closing East Bellfield and Callen elementary schools, reassigning affected neighborhoods and opening Doe Run Elementary at the former South Brandywine site in August 2026.

The superintendent said the changes were driven by a goal to create neighborhood schools, reduce transportation crossovers and improve equity in socioeconomic and racial distribution across buildings. He told the board the PowerSchool projections include enrollment forecasts for 2026, 2030 and 2034 and that the enrollment modeling reflects birth-rate formulas and other standard assumptions.

Board members pressed staff on projections, new housing and future enrollment uncertainty. When asked who would provide transportation for students grandfathered to complete fifth grade at their original school, the superintendent said, "We are gonna ask parents to provide transportation if available. If not, then we'll have to figure that out with transportation." He also said the district will send interactive maps to families and a hard-copy letter in January explaining where students will attend.

The plan includes a single grandfathering provision for current fourth-graders to finish fifth grade at their home school. Staff said facility reuse for the two closed buildings is undecided; "there's no plan to do anything with them but keep them as district property" for now.

After discussion and questions from trustees about capacity utilization, racial percentages and transportation savings, the board voted to approve the realignment plan.

The district will post the interactive map and project materials online and notify families with individualized address lookups; committees will continue to study implementation details in January.