(Seguin) – Will the new proposed Seguin ISD attendance zones change where your elementary school child will go to school next school year? The proposed maps that include changes to the boundary lines for the district’s seven elementary school campuses are now available for public viewing and input.
Sean Hoffmann, the chief communications officer, says the maps won’t become official until the end of the month. Until then, the district is encouraging parents to go online or stop by one of the campuses to view the proposed changes to the map.
“These maps will reflect the proposed changes that we are looking to have in place for fall 2021. Essentially, we are creating a website that is going to have several different resources on it, maps included. Our families will be able to enter their address and see where their address lies within the new proposed boundaries. We’ll have a presentation that basically shows how we got to this process and what our next steps are. We’ll also have an email address for feedback. Of course, when we post on social media, we are thinking we’ll probably get some feedback on this,” said Hoffmann.
Pushing forward with these new attendance zones, comes about a year after the district first started exploring this issue. It was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
District officials say for 10 years, the district has not needed to disrupt the lines. But now, they say they’ve held off for “far too long.”
They say there are new homes going up in just about every attendance zone within the district.
“But again, we feel that now is the time. We have not changed our boundaries since Rodriguez opened up 10 years ago and we’ve experienced growth and we have campuses that have 275 kids and a campus with 575 kids. So, with that disparity, we need to get those boundaries redrawn in order to create a little more equity within our enrollments at each elementary school,” said Hoffmann.
The shift in lines and the reassigning of kids elsewhere, however, does not in anyway change the quality of education for students. Hoffmann says students like they are now are getting the same quality curriculum across the board.
“We expect and we are proud that if a family attends one elementary school, they are going to get the same quality education if they attend another elementary school within Seguin ISD. We don’t feel that there is a disparity between campuses. We would have hoped that families would feel comfortable in getting an education at any of them,” said Hoffmann.
District officials say the boundary lines will better distribute the number of kids across the district. Current growth spurts right now are in the McQueeney and Vogel areas. Both Koennecke and Rodriguez have maintained the largest enrollment numbers. The proposed boundary line changes will also maintain the current demographic balance found at all schools.
Meanwhile, the distribution of students due to the community’s growth does not require a new campus. District officials say each of the schools still have plenty of classroom space with approximately 800 spots available throughout. They say the proposed changes are needed to ensure the balance of not only students but also the support services and resources needed to operate at an exceptional level.
As Hoffmann has already stated, the district is prepared for all comments and perhaps even some disappointment in these new boundary changes.
“Our students, we realize that they love the school that they are in today and we are very proud of that fact. That’s a wonderful thing to have that support from our students and families for their home school but again, as Seguin grows, we don’t really have any other way around it then to look, analyze and then periodically draw these boundaries in order to create that equity within or school system,” said Hoffmann.
The district looks to adopt the proposed boundary lines on March 31 with the hope that families will receive official notification of those changes in April.
The created web page can be found at www.seguin.k12.tx.us/page/