Attendance zones for new high school take some students away from their neighborhoods

Kevin Siffermann was shocked when he saw the just-released attendance zone proposals for the new high school in Parrish. All of them indicated his 6-year-old twin boys will eventually be going to Palmetto High School and not the new North River High.

The Siffermanns live in Fairways at Imperial Lakewoods, which does have a Palmetto address but is only five miles from the soon-to-be-built North River High. In all three zoning proposals the Manatee School District is considering, his area is zoned for Palmetto High. That, Siffermann calculates, will be at least a 20-minute bus ride to school for his boys. The ride to North River, at the southeast corner of Martha and Erie roads, would take less than half that time.

“We live in the North River community,” Siffermann said. “We go to church in the North River community. Everything we do is in the North River community.”

His wife, Barbara, has been a school teacher in Manatee County for more than 20 years. His adopted sons, Austin and Noah, now go to Tara Elementary every day with their mom.

“It seems anyone who lives in Parrish but who has a Palmetto address and zip code is zoned for Palmetto High School,” Siffermann said. “And you have parents who live five miles away from Lakewood Ranch High and they are proposed to bus to North River.”

Siffermann’s neighborhood could be zoned for Palmetto High to balance the number of lower socioeconomic students — students getting free or reduced lunch at school — among the four high schools affected by the rezone: Palmetto, Lakewood Ranch, Braden River and North River.

That’s one of a handful of guidelines used by the three volunteer committees of parents and district administrators tasked with coming up with an attendance plan for the new high school, said Dan Lundeen, supervisor of student demographics, projections and assignments. The committees presented zoning proposals A, B and C to the school board on Tuesday.

The district wants to balance the low socioeconomic numbers to ensure diversity, Lundeen said. But it comes at a cost.

“To fully balance lower socioeconomics, you would need to take people from the heart of Palmetto and bus them all the way over to North River, Lakewood Ranch and Braden River,” Lundeen said. “You would be taking people out of their communities and have them leave schools that are right next to them.”

Among other criteria the committees used included minimizing students’ time on buses, both for their safety, comfort and for saving gasoline, and also respecting geographic boundaries, like highways, railroads and rivers, Lundeen added.

Manatee’s three other traditional high schools —Manatee, Southeast and Bayshore — were not affected by the rezoning.

The board will review the three proposed zoning maps over the next month and, following a public hearing at the school board building at 5:45 p.m. Jan. 9, when the public can weigh in, the board is expected to vote on a final attendance zone for North River High, said Superintendent Diana Greene.

Palmetto High in cross hairs

Scheduled to open in August 2019, North River High is being built to cure overcrowding at Palmetto, Braden River and Lakewood Ranch high schools, which are in line to shed about 300 students each when North River opens with roughly 1,000 ninth- and 10th-graders only, Lundeen said.

Students who live in a two-mile radius of North River High seem to have an excellent chance of being zoned there since all three committees drew their maps that way, Lundeen said.

Copperstone, Lexington, Willow Bend, Harrison Ranch, Ancient Oaks, Lakeside Preserve, Kingsfield and Kingsfield Lakes, along with children who live in non-developments within two miles of the new school, were all on the proposed zoning maps for North River, Lundeen added.

From there, the proposals diverge.

Palmetto High parent Rachel Kendzior is a member of Committee A, whose proposal was significantly different from the proposals of committees B and C.

“We really tried to balance the lower socioeconomic number for all four schools,” Kendzior said.

In efforts to keep Palmetto High’s percentage of lower socioeconomic students close to its current 51 percent, Committee A proposed busing students to Palmetto High from a strip of subdivisions near North River High.

“Their proposal would send students who live in River Wilderness, Manatee River Plantation, Twin River, River Chase, River’s Reach and some smaller communities to Palmetto High,” Lundeen added.

Committee A’s proposal would result in Palmetto having a 57.9 lower socioeconomic percentage after the rezone, the lowest of all the maps. Committee B has Palmetto at 64 percent; Committee C is at 64.7 percent.

“That is the price you pay to lower socioeconomic,” Lundeen said. “You create a long bus ride and take people out of their communities.”

Some board members are more critical of Committee A’s proposal because of all the busing.

School board member Scott Hopes says he favors a rezone that focuses on reducing busing, given that the district already has a shortage of bus drivers and is trying to watch its pennies.

But school board member John Colon, on the other hand, wants the lower socioeconomic numbers to be as balanced as possible.

Committees B and C go geographic

Andrew Galeziowski has a child at Lakewood Ranch High and one at Nolan Middle. He lives in Lakewood Ranch in an area soundly locked into Lakewood Ranch High, he said.

Galeziowski was a key person on Committee C, whose map is quite close in design to Committee B.

Galeziowski said his team drew up its map in about 30 minutes, simply looking at where students lived and the school closest to them.

“When we started, we were provided a list of criteria and, at the top, there was a lot of focus on the percentage of lower socioeconomic students,” Galeziowski said. “We didn’t get to that at first. In our process, we were looking at the most pragmatic geographic areas.”

Committee C spent the remainder of two hours making “tweaks” to try to work the lower socioeconomic numbers, Galeziowski added.

“We tried to keep middle school kids together,” he said. “We looked at what makes the most geographic sense, which keeps the costs down.”

The plan they came up with basically has students living north of State Road 64, east of Interstate 75 and south of the Manatee River going to North River, including residents of Heritage Harbor, Greyhawk Landing and Mill Creek.

But Committee C’s map leaves Palmetto High at 64.7 percent of its students on free or reduced lunch; Lakewood Ranch at 23 percent, a 2 percentage point increase; Braden River at 32 percent, up from its current 29.9 percent; and the new North River at 23 percent.

Committee B, led by Lakewood Ranch High administrator Mike Staker, came up with quite similar numbers.

The three schools not affected by the rezone, Manatee, Southeast and Bayshore, are currently at 49, 63 and 75 percent lower socioeconomic students, respectively, Lundeen said.

For those needing more information or to register an idea or comment, contact Lundeen at lundeend@manateeschools.net.

This story was originally published November 17, 2017 at 11:41 AM with the headline "Attendance zones for new high school take some students away from their neighborhoods."