Last night, the Newhall School Board held their meeting at the Stevenson Ranch Elementary School. A key item on the agenda was to determine how the Board would address the Kindergarten overcrowding issue that will impact Stevenson Ranch Elementary School.

At the meeting held March 14, 2006, the School Board already decided to freeze Grade 1-6 enrollment and establish a cap for Kindergarten enrollment at both Stevenson Ranch and Pico Canyon Elementary schools. They also decided to permit priority enrollment into Kindergarten for those students who had siblings already enrolled at Stevenson Ranch Elementary and Pico Canyon schools. After reviews of the enrollments for Stevenson Ranch Elementary when taking in consideration siblings, it was determined that there were approximately 71 students vying for 27 open slots. Those beyond the 27 open slots would be diverted to Oak Hill Elementary School in Westridge.

Dr. Winger provided the Board, and the almost 45 parents in attendance, a review of how this issue was addressed last year. The numbers were almost the same as last year – and the decision made by the Board at that time was to define a geographical area around the school where those inside the boundary would attend the school, and those outside would be diverted. He indicated that because of where the prospective students were located for 2006-7, the boundary used last year would not work because the cap would be exceeded. Therefore any geographical boundary based on last year would need to be redrawn covering a smaller area than last year.

In addition to a geographical boundary defining who would attend Stevenson Ranch Elementary, the other option under serious consideration was an individual lottery for each open slot at the school. During the open comment timeframe, parents fit into 2 basic groups – those in close proximity to the school who preferred a new geographic based boundary, and those from outside last years’ boundary who wanted a lottery.

After the public comments, a Board member suggested an alternative option – a lottery based not on the individual, but upon the street. The idea was to avoid cases where neighbors on the same street could go to different schools because of the luck of the draw in an individual lottery. All new Kindergarten students on a street would go to the same school – either Stevenson Ranch or Oak Hills.

The Board re-opened the meeting to public comments to gain feedback on this version of the lottery. Again, the comments were polarized based on geography and the desire that “neighborhoods” or tracts go in as a group versus individual streets being selected until the total number of enrollments was achieved. Families not in close proximity to the school still favored the lottery as the best solution.

After a motion was made for a vote on the Street level Lottery solution, the Board approved it by a vote of 4 to 1.

Dr. Winger will determine the logistics and define the date when the drawing will take place. This will be communicated to the affected families and the community and will be open to the public.

Thanks to Ronald Mechsner for covering this community meeting and writing this summary of the evenings discussion.