Working with Boundary Committees and the Community

1. Lessons from the Front Line Working with Boundary Committees and the Community

2. Elements of Success in Establishing New Attendance Areas

3. Decide on the Process Know your Board and community: • Internal staff process?, or, • Committee with public input?

4. Political Considerations • Broad representation on the Boundary Study Committee • Use an application • Make it a Superintendent’s Committee to avoid Brown Act Issues (open meeting laws) • Use principals as staff representatives • The Board of Trustees and Superintendent must be willing to let others arrive at a recommendation without interference

5. Committee Composition • 15-20 persons max • District Staff • Curriculum • Business • Transportation • Facilities • School site personnel • Parents from affected schools • City staff?

6. Organizational and Process Issues • Engage a neutral, trained facilitator to lead the committee through the process • Make decisions by consensus • Establish criteria for evaluating potential maps/options before the maps are drawn Important!

7. Examples of Criteria • Students should live as close to their school as possible • Middle school students should stay together when they go to high school • Student enrollment should be matched with the design capacity of each school

8. School Closure Criteria

9. Information Needs • Good demographic information and enrollment forecasts are critical in the development of various plans • The ability to create “what if” scenarios allows for meaningful participation of committee members and the public • SchoolSite is ideal for this process

10. Use a Building Block Approach • Here is where Study Areas come into play…

11. Why Use Study Areas? • If designed properly and the process is understood, avoids the pitfalls of dealing with designing boundaries around individual streets • Allows for the preparation of enrollment projections for small areas • Study Areas should be developed based upon the committee criteria for boundariesi.e. current attendance zones, major roads, city boundaries, new development, etc.

12. Projections

13. Additional Criteria Including Transportation Issues • Use ArcGIS Network Analyst extension…

14. Various Maps Illustrating a Single Boundary Plan versus the Criteria

15. Various Plans for the Committee

16. Provide for Public Input • Use an “accordion” process of going out to the community and back to the committee several times • Each time you talk to the public, designate one person to speak. It may be the facilitator or a staff member • Much of the public input will be in the form of unrelated questions that need to be answered

17. Get Good Media Coverage • Bring your local reporters in early and often • Ask the committee to decide if any of them will be allowed to communicate with media (Best answer = no) • The facilitator is in best position to provide accurate information and keep the heat off of staff • Provide complex information/maps in advance of public meetings so they have time to get comfortable with it

18. Pulling the Trigger • Make the recommendation to the Board in the form of a management report, not to be acted on at that meeting • Make any critical revisions or compromises before the final vote • Make a decision and move on

19. Additional Benefits of Proper Planning • Projections and boundary planning will identify areas of future site needs in a timely manner, which will: • Save $ in site acquisition and incremental building costs by accurately pin-pointing future facility needs • Minimize the need to re-visit the boundary process in the future.

20. When You Accurately Plan and Your Boundaries are Set, You Could be Here!