Meeting on school boundary changes is today

A public meeting to discuss upcoming school boundary changes in the Stone Oak area will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 5.  Hosted by North East ISD, the meeting will be held within the auditorium of Reagan High School.

This is the first opportunity to learn how attendance boundaries will be altered to accommodate the two new elementary schools opening in August 2012.   Additional meetings are expected.  “There will definitely be several opportunities to speak and get more information,” says NEISD Publications Specialist Kristina Martinez. 

Feedback from parents and staff will be combined with a number of district goals, including:

·         Boundaries should remain stable for years to come.

·         Everyone in the neighborhood attends the same school.

·         Minimize the number of boundary changes.

·         Minimize the number of portables used on a campus.

·         Reach the optimal limits for elementary size of 800 to 1000 students.

The new school boundaries could be drawn as early as January.  The number of students expected to be affected and from which schools are not yet known.  In years past, former NEISD superintendent Richard Middleton warned these upcoming boundary changes would be “profound,” particularly for students attending Wilderness Oak, Hardy Oak, Canyon Ridge and Stone Oak elementary schools.

The two new schools are being built by Summit Builders, which was awarded the winning bid worth $27 million for each campus. Located on the northeast corner of Loop 1604 and Huebner Road, Vineyard Ranch Elementary School will be a two-story, 127,743-square-foot building with 45 classrooms, two music rooms, computer lab, library and two gyms.  Las Lomas Elementary (formerly dubbed Knights Cross Elementary), will be located near Knights Cross and the Hardy Oak extension. 

Both campuses will open at the start of the 2012-13 school year with students in kindergarten through the fifth grade.