DSISD one step closer to new attendance zones

The planning and discussion of new attendance zones for the Dripping Springs Independent School District continued last week with the district’s second community input meeting on March 2. The redrawing of maps comes as the district is set to open its fifth elementary, Cypress Springs Elementary (CSE), this August.

Community meetings have featured overviews of the attendance zone development process and timeline, sharing of boardapproved parameters, demographic information and projected enrollments, an introduction of “starter option” maps, then additional attendance zone maps to consider for both elementary schools and middle school feeder patterns.

During the presentation before public comment, Clint Pruett, the district’s Director of Facilities and Construction, explained that capacity limits under each elementary scenario would leave Dripping Springs Elementary and Walnut Springs Elementary over capacity by 2024/2025 signaling the need for a sixth elementary school in the near future. He also stated that middle school feeder patterns are a bit of a dilemma and capacity concerns over the next few years would also leave the district in need of opening a third middle school in that same time frame of 2024/2025, or potentially sooner depending on what map option is approved. The District owns property near the Headwaters subdivision, and that property was mentioned as the location for the sixth elementary and potentially another middle school.The other potential location for a third middle school is on the property next to the new CSE.

Currently, Dripping Springs Middle School (DSMS) has a capacity of around 1200 students, and Sycamore Springs Middle School (SSMS) has a capacity of 850 students. According to the projections shown, if no changes are made to the current attendance zones for middle schools, both campuses will be over capacity by 2022. Two other option maps were presented. During public input, many parents of students in far east neighborhoods, such as Reunion Ranch and Rim Rock, expressed concerns about map option 2 which rezoned those students from SSMS to DSMS.

“Thank you for giving us this forum,” parent Kelly DeVilling began. “We are so fortunate to live in this district, but in terms of Reunion Ranch to DSMS... I’ve talked to many neighbors, and everyone is strongly opposed to that. We’re coming from one opposite end of the district to the other, an hour long bus ride for our children. I would ask the committee to consider even the resources of fuel and the expense of moving those kids and bussing them from one end of the district to the other.”

Other parents echoed DeVilling’s concerns, and that map has now been removed from consideration as the committee prepares to meet again this week.

One other noteworthy topic to come from the March 2 meeting was discussion about the possibility of expanding SSMS. “There is not a definitive plan in terms of expanding to 1200,” Pruett said. “It’s something that has been discussed with the Board and the Bond Advisory Committee... so it’s certainly an option that we’ll continue to explore as we wind up the 2018 Bond program and look at any potential savings that we might have at the end of that program. The ability to expand Sycamore Springs Middle School to 1200 if we were able to do that in the short term would give us more flexibility in addressing some of these feeder pattern challenges in the next few years.”

The Attendance Zone Development Committee is now considering three elementary options and two middle school options, which can be found at dsisdtx.us/Page/2819. A third community input meeting was held Tuesday after the Century News’ print deadline. The committee is expected to present proposed school attendance zones to the Board of Trustees on March 22, and the Board is set to approve the zones on March 29.