Middle School Boundary Change Hearing - Recap

Menifee Union School District held its first public hearing concerning boundary changes for its middle schools today. The change in boundaries is necessitated by the new middle school, located in Sun City, off of McCall Blvd, east of the I-215.

I'd say about 20 families were in attendance, and 15-20 district faculty, including current trustees, former trustees, and prospective trustees.

Assistant Superintendent Gil Compton gave the presentation, which was largely explaining their "guiding principles", which help them decide how to create boundaries. You can download the guiding principles from the district's website here...

http://www.menifeeusd.org/fil_files/355.pdf

While the district doesn't have any idea what boundaries to adopt, Compton did name off a few ideas...

• By elementary school boundaries - Quail Valley, Ridgemoor, Freedom Crest elementaries would attend the new middle school.



• By Newport Rd - Families living north of Newport Rd would attend the new middle school. This actually creates the most balanced student bodies between the three middle schools, according to Compton.



• By Salt Creek - Families living north of Salt Creek would attend the new middle school. This provides an advantage in times when it rains really hard, and causes flooding where it crosses Newport Rd and Murrieta Rd. This boundary will prevent students from having to cross over the creek to get to school.

None of the families in attendance voiced a preference or displeasure for any of the ideas presented, nor did they present their own ideas. Much of the comments dealt with transporting their kids, and most of these comments came from Quail Valley residents. Other comments were actually questions asking if the district took into account various dynamics, such as how travel time to the new middle school might cause parents to be late on transporting their other kids to the elementary or high school. Compton basically nodded yes on everything, indicating they thought of everything.

There were also a few comments about notifying the public about this meeting. A couple of parents complained that they never got notice of this meeting, and only heard about it from some other word of mouth. Betti Cadmus, the district's public information officer, explained that it was published in all the major newspapers and published on the district's website. Compton explained that notices were sent out to parents. A counselor there also commented that he was very disappointed the meeting was so sparsely attended.

My only take on the low attendance is that most families don't care, largely because it won't matter to them.

These boundary changes really only concern the families who live close to Newport Rd. Those are the ones who still don't know which middle school their children will attend. The other families already know. That is, if you live well away from Newport Rd, the details on where the boundary lines are drawn won't be significant enough to affect you. For example, if you live along McCall Blvd, you already know that your child will attend the new middle school, and thus there's little you can say to change that. I think those families don't feel an urgency to attend this meeting.

The other thing is that there's still a second meeting, scheduled for September 2, at 5:00pm, at Bell Mountain Middle School.

The school board trustees will make a final decision on these boundary changes sometime this October.

Download the Comment Form

If you don't have time to attend the next meeting, you can download a comment form here...

http://www.menifeeusd.org/fil_files/354.pdf

You can either mail it to the district, or e-mail it.

Mail it to...

Menifee Union School District
30205 Menifee Road
Menifee, CA 92584

Or e-mail it to: ms3-comments@menifeeusd.org

You basically have the rest of this month, and all of next month, to submit your comments.