P20 Campus

     The next instillation of Aurora’s P-20 Campus change to APS is coming with the boundary changes for the nearby schools. There were several open houses around APS to look at the six boundary plans, one of which will be chosen for the final decision. The open houses at Clyde Miller Elementary, Rangeview High School, Murphy Creek, and Aurora Frontier gave parents and students a chance to review the plans and give feedback to the boundary committee through surveys.

     The six scenarios displayed at the open houses in both English and Spanish so all of APS’s residents could give an opinion. Each board contained maps, tables of school attendance over future years, and what neighborhoods will attend what schools. Guests at the open houses also had a chance to talk to creators of the plans, members of the Board of Education, and other influential figures involved with APS.

     Parents and students can go to http://www.aps.k12.co.us/boundary and look at all the plans. Feedback was analyzed until early December, and then the East Aurora Attendance Area Committee made a final recommendation.

     “The East Aurora Attendance Area Committee considered input from parents, community members and instructional leaders and thoroughly reviewed enrollment, transportation and facility data to develop a final attendance area recommendation. After careful deliberation, the majority of the committee favored recommending scenario 4 to the Superintendent’s Leadership Team and the Board of Education.” As posted on www.apscms.net/enews/, “A final survey of the committee showed eight members preferred scenario 4 compared to five members who preferred scenario 3. The committee feels that both scenario 3 and scenario 4 have similar advantages, and all members indicated they would be satisfied with either scenario.”

     “The boundary committee made up of parents, teachers, school administrators, and other important people involved with the campus spent about six months weeding through nearly 20 plans until we got to what we felt was the best,” said Shannon Bingham, “The committee’s goals were to open schools with enough enrollment to support programs, to ensure all facilities are used effectively, preserve neighborhoods when possible, and to maximize bus efficiency.”

     “We never would have needed this committee, but the current developments around P-20 are not yet big enough to fund all the students needed,” Bingham went on to say. “In this spirit, I think the best plan is plan 4. It will especially help to integrate Clyde Miller Elementary into the APS community, and right now it’s rather isolated.”

     Each plan included changes to elementary and high school attendance, but some plans were more drastic than others. Plans for Rangeview High school are most drastic with 1A and 2A, both of which would take Rangeview’s population down to nearly 1600 students by 2015. Plan 3 and 4 changed the RHS population much less, with an effort to only bring the attendance down to capacity.

     “With that few students, it would give us many empty class rooms, and that would give us a lot of interesting options,” said RHS Principal Pam Turner, “Most notably, it would allow open enrollment in RHS, something we haven’t been able to do in recent years. We’ve had to deny a lot of students due to overcrowding, and all plans would help to bring us to our 2,000 student capacity. If people want the STEM pathway, I want to be able to give that to them.”

     The committee is also looking at APS’s current open enrollment policies, because each school will have a different pathway. Rangeview and Gateway will house the Galaxy Pathway which prepares students to enter science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) professions. Conversely, Aurora Central, Hinkley, and William Smith have a LIGHTS Pathway that prepares students for careers in the health sciences.

     “Changing our open enrollment policy would give more choice and opportunity to parents and students. We’re trying to decide on a policy that will best fit our district, and make the most of our new campus,” said Mary Lewis, a member of the Board of Education.

     Parent Nancy Reid said, “I’m pretty neutral on all plans. None of them affect my neighborhood, but they did a really good job of communicating the changes to us. It’s great they included us in this monumental decision.”

     Everyone is holding their breath to see what plan is chosen, and what the change will bring in years to come. The P-20 campus is truly becoming the dinosaur of APS’s future development, and is the most influential item for Aurora’s future.

 
-Jake Schmied