BOUNDARY CREATION PROCESS

K-8 Boundaries

For several years the district has needed at least one additional K-8 school in the El Mirage community, but was limited because of restrictions concerning construction around Luke Air Force Base. This led to the district searching for an alternative site; as a result Parkview Elementary School was constructed. Though the location did not need a K-8 school, as there were several schools in the vicinity including Kingswood, Countryside and Ashton Ranch, students were bused from the Las Brisas community and other schools to prevent overcrowding.

In June of 2007, the district learned of the possibility to construct a K-8 school within the Las Brisas community. Unexpectedly, the City of El Mirage, in doing some research on the issue, discovered the original school site was approved prior to the creation of laws limiting construction around Luke Air Force Base. As a result, construction of the school was “grandfathered.” After a public hearing and approval by the State Facilities Board (SFB), the district began construction on the Las Brisas school site. Prior to receiving this information, the district had assumed no school would ever be built in this location.

With the construction approval for a school in El Mirage (Las Brisas), the boundary committee was challenged with the unexpected opportunity to create a new school boundary where the district was not previously allowed to do so. The construction of a school at Las Brisas created both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity of the situation was to be able to stop busing students from the Las Brisas neighborhood and to reduce the number of students at other schools within El Mirage. The challenge was how to address the Parkview school site, which was specifically built to address an issue that no longer existed and to lower student numbers throughout the district.

With the school being built in the community of Las Brisas at Main St. and Cactus and an additional school being constructed in the new development of Asante at Grand and 163rd Ave., the committee set out to establish new boundaries. During the process, the committee considered the following priorities:

At the first meeting on November 1, the committee started by considering three possible options (Plan A, B and C on the boundary committee work webpage). After receiving a packet of information, which included data on the projected number of students in each boundary grid, the committee was asked to complete a survey and make comments on the three separate plans. These comments and the survey results were reviewed and a fourth plan (Plan D) was presented to the committee at the second meeting on November 15. This meeting was followed by a second survey on the merits of Plan D. Again this input was reviewed and it resulted in a fifth plan (Plan E).  Plan E was then discussed in the committee’s final meeting on November 29. After much discussion, only one final change was recommended and the committee agreed that a final plan (Plan F) should be submitted to the community and ultimately to the governing board for approval. 

Community members are now invited to review the information provided to the committee and comment on the final recommendation for K-8 boundaries for the 2008-09 school year. This final K-8 boundary recommendation addresses the following issues:

To view the proposed boundaries and the boundary committee’s work, click on the links to the left.

High School (9-12) Boundaries

High school boundaries will remain the same.