Group suggested 200 be moved at first
by Nate Gotlieb
Contributing Writer
The committee tasked with addressing overcrowding at Twin Lakes Elementary School recommended Monday that the Elk River Area School District transfer about 150 Twin Lakes students to Parker and Lincoln elementary schools for next school year.
That number was about 50 fewer students than the committee originally recommended on Jan. 11.
The modified recommendation came after a Jan. 26 public input meeting attended by more than 130 people. In an informal vote, just 9 percent of attendees approved of moving up to 200 students and 39 percent said the district should decrease the number to 150.
District policy requires a school to reduce its student population when the building is more than 15 percent over capacity. Twin Lakes is about 16 percent over capacity this school year, with about 900 students and a stated limit of 775.
“We don’t have enough classroom space,” Principal Dan Collins said, adding that school leaders had to convert the media center into two fifth-grade classrooms.
“Your building becomes where it’s hard to manage with so many kids.”
The committee is recommending the district reduce the school’s population by reassigning open-enrolled and in-district transfer students and by revising the Twin Lakes boundary zone.
The committee’s new plan would reassign students in Pullman Place and a portion of the Northfork development to Lincoln. It would reassign a portion of the students who live in the townhomes in the area north of the light rail station to Parker.
The new plan would allow the 14 children of Twin Lakes staff members who are not in the school boundary zone to remain. It would also allow nine students from Otsego to stay, because that elementary school is about 10 percent over capacity.
The plan would allow 17 open-enrolled students directly to the east of the current Twin Lakes zone to stay. Those students would otherwise be in the Anoka-Hennepin School district.
It would allow upcoming fifth-graders to stay at Twin Lakes but would require those families to provide their own transportation.
The plan would not change the number of full-time classroom employees the district needs next year. The district would eliminate Twin Lakes’ assistant principal and third secretary positions as a result of the plan. It would also need to move about four or five teachers to different buildings.
The district plans on mailing final student assignment letters to every Twin Lakes student in kindergarten through fourth grades.
Boundaries ‘good for 3 to 5 years’
The district policy, dubbed the 4004 policy, stipulates that the district not change a student’s school more than once in a selected grade span, which is elementary school in this case.
Director of Research and Assessment Joe Stangler said the district will adhere to that policy. He said the modified proposal could hold for three to five years, whereas the committee’s original proposal could hold for five to seven years.
Regardless, he said the district will not move kids more than once during their elementary school careers.
Attendance zone changes next year would apply only to elementary schools, not Salk and VandenBerge middle schools. The district will phase in the changes at the middle schools.
The School Board decided on Monday to discuss the recommendations at its Feb. 29 work session. District administrators say the board needs to make a final decision by its next meeting on March 14.