Visalia Unified to draw new boundaries with new middle school
They are about to take the plans to the community and hear what parents have to say.
VISALIA, Calif. (KFSN) -- Currently, the property is just a dirt lot. But the Visalia Unified School District says construction is well under way for their newest middle school. Now the district is deciding what students will ultimately go here.
"We have four and we need to divide our community into five middle schools," said Superintendent Craig Wheaton, Visalia Unified School District.
Wheaton says they first started talking about changing school boundaries in October with a presentation to the school board. They are also changing the high school boundaries. "It is a frightening proposition"
The board will be considering several factors as they re-draw boundaries. They want to have balanced demographics and socioeconomic backgrounds at each school. They also want each school to have around the same amount of students.
"We know this is very serious kind of decision for the school board," said Wheaton.
The district wants to have the decision made in the next couple of months but all the changes wont go into affect until this new middle school opens in August 2016.
"So that allows everyone time to figure out how this is going to work and ease into it," said Wheaton.
Starting next week, the district will be hosting public meetings at every middle school to get public input on the changes. They will bring several different maps and take comments on each one. Then they will take all the information back to the school board and ask them to choose the new boundaries.
