By Danielle Grant, Local News 8 Reporter
Proposed changes to local elementary school boundaries stir some parents' concerns.
Bonneville Joint School District 93 wants to re-draw their lines to ease the burden of over-crowding in schools.
And with a new elementary school opening up in Ammon next fall, they need to transition students into the facility.
Tuesday evening, parents at Bridgewater Elementary, uneasy about the changes, met with district administrators to voice their concerns.
Although, District 93 administrators say students at Rimrock and Woodland Hills will be affected the most by these changes.
They hope to alleviate the anxiety and stress that happens in over-crowded schools. But some local parents say it may cause more harm than good.
The lines are drawn.
The map is made.
But the proposed changes are not sitting straight with everyone.
"I am concerned with the proposed changes, because the extra parental help that we have to help the teachers will go down," explained Jennifer Sewell, a concerned Bridgewater Elementary parent.
Many parents at the meeting collaborate over the newly drawn-up map fearing it'll push the stable families out of the area, something they say Bridgewater Elementary so desperately needs to stay the course.
"We've struggled to get people to come in and help us this year. Not that they don't want to, a lot of them just can't and we're concerned about that," said Sewell.
District 93 administrators say it has taken long hours, many days and lots of calculations to come up with these boundary lines.
Two years ago, they tweaked school boundaries because the area was growing so much; 300 to 400 new students coming to class each year.
Now, they're forced to do it again, build more schools and move more students.
"I think it's always a challenge when you're children have to move schools, but children are really resilient. You know, they get into new schools, they make new friends pretty quickly," said Marjean McConnell, District 93's Assistant Superintendent.
The district says they don't know how many students this will affect but at least 300 will be moved to the new school.
"Sometimes it's a new adventure to go to a new school, make new friends," said McConnell.
"I think that everybody just wants to make sure that their child is having their needs looked at equally," Sewell explained.
Parents and administrators are both looking at the lines and looking out for the student's success.
Two public meetings talking about the proposed changes will happen in December.
The first will be held Wednesday, December 2nd at 7:00 p.m. in Sandcreek Middle School's cafeteria.
The second will be a week later on Wednesday, December 9th at District 93's Administration Building's board room.
And, the board could vote as early as December 9th as to whether they'll adopt the changes or not.
If you can't make it to those meetings, you can voice your comments on District 93's website, click here. Also, you can find maps of the proposed school boundaries.
