'Can't make everybody happy': 3 things to know about boundaries for Dr. García High
Update: The Palm Beach County School Board approved a final attendance map for Dr. Joaquín García High on March 29. Read about it here.
A volunteer committee has finalized a map that shows which Palm Beach County students will be rezoned to fill the district's newest high school when it opens in the fall.
Dr. Joaquín García High, located on Lyons Road in suburban Lake Worth Beach, will pull students from nearby Palm Beach Central, Santaluces, Park Vista and John I. Leonard high schools. Students from other high schools will be shifted to fill empty spots and balance crowding.
The map sends students from Greenacres to five different high schools, while shifting neighborhoods closest to Dr. García High to the new school. Amendments introduced by Wellington elected officials leave most of Wellington untouched and allow students there to stay at schools in the village. Elsewhere, students were shifted to Boynton Beach High to address under-enrollment there, despite longer travel times.
Not everything the committee hoped to achieve is reflected in that map.
On Thursday, the district's advisory boundary committee met to finalize a list of recommendations to send with the attendance map to Superintendent Mike Burke. The recommendations include questions about which students can stay at their schools, equity issues and transportation problems the committee hopes Burke will address.
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Burke will review and send a final map and his recommendations along to the school board on Feb. 15, according to the committee's proposed timeline.
The school board can make its own changes and must vote twice on the map before it can take effect for the fall.
Here are the three top concerns from the committee:
1. Allow rising juniors to remain at their current schools
Dozens of parents of sophomores asked the district to allow their students to choose to remain at their school next year. They said moving students away from teachers, close friends, competitive sports and club leadership opportunities would harm students on their college applications and with their mental health.
The district allows seniors and their siblings to choose to stay at their current schools, but the district staff told the committee they would have to examine whether allowing juniors to remain at their current schools would result in under-enrollment at Dr. García High.
The committee does not have the authority to independently rule on whether juniors can stay at their schools.
2. Attract more students to Boynton Beach High
Although nearby schools are far exceeding capacity, Boynton Beach High has low enrollment at 61%, and many committee members pushed to move more neighborhoods into the school's attendance zone.
But parents pushed back, and the final map leaves the school at only 75% enrollment next year.
Committee members said many students who should attend Boynton Beach High choose to go elsewhere because of better choice program opportunities and safety and traffic concerns with getting to the school. They hope Burke can push for new choice programs and funding that can jump-start enrollment at the school.
3. Community concerns with traffic, who gets heard and audition-based school programs
In addition to their top concerns, the committee members also chose to pass on to Burke major issues for parents and community members who spoke up during the boundary process.
Those issues include:
Traffic safety: Residents of Isola Bella, located south of Hypoluxo Road, are concerned that moving their students to Dr. García High would require young drivers to take a dangerous left turn at the gated community's entrance, which doesn't have a signal.
Middle schools: The new map sends just 6% of students at Christa McAuliffe Middle School to Dr. García High, while 94% of the middle school would attend Park Vista High.
Splitting Greenacres students: Elected officials and parents in Greenacres are concerned that their city's students are being divided into five different high schools. The city council passed a resolution asking the committee to address the issue, but the panel voted down multiple amendments to the attendance map that would have kept more groups of neighborhoods together.
Keeping students in audition or merit-based programs: Parents of students in academic and theater programs at Olympic Heights High said they're worried their kids will lose ground if they're taken out of the programs — which are not formal choice programs offered by the district and therefore not protected from rezoning.
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Despite meetings that have become tense and tedious, boundary committee members supported the suggestions going to the superintendent.
"I think it's in all of our interests to at least provide the superintendent with some of these key pieces of information that didn't make it into the study," committee member Karen Lythgoe said.
"I know we can't make everybody happy, but I think safety should be at the heart of all of our decisions here."
Katherine Kokal is a journalist covering education at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at kkokal@pbpost.com. Help support our work: Subscribe today!
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County school committee approves Garcia High attendance map
