Madison Metropolitan School District study group seeks solutions for future school overcrowding

A Madison Metropolitan School District study group formed to address the predicted future overcrowding in the La Follette High School attendance area plans to finalize their recommendations for the school board within the next month. 

In the next five years, MMSD officials predict multiple schools in the La Follette High School attendance area will experience over 100% capacity. At the same time, the East High School attendance area is projected to remain under capacity.

Specifically in danger of overcrowding by the 2015-2016 school year are four La Follette area elementary schools, Allis Elementary and Nuestro Mundo—who currently share a single building—Kennedy Elementary and Elvehjem Elementary.

A 22-member study group comprised of representatives from the La Follette and East High School attendance areas has met since May to create solutions for future space issues in the schools.

According to Andrew Statz, MMSD Chief Information Officer, the study group will meet to assess the school area’s current and future enrollment, generate ideas to solve the problem and ultimately make recommendations to the school board.

Because the East High School area schools are projected to be at low capacity in the near future, members of the study group will develop a plan to utilize extra space in these schools for the La Follette area students. This involves possibly redrawing boundary lines of the two school attendance areas. 

However, one of the study group’s main goals is to find a creative alternative for the problem that does not involve children switching schools.

“There are a whole host of options that fall short from moving kids and certainly from moving a lot of kids,” Statz said.

While the study group will attempt to prevent students from changing schools, they must also consider additional issues and neighborhood concerns when redrawing boundary lines of the two school zones.

These issues include: keeping bus routes short, protecting historical and geographical neighborhood lines, avoiding high concentrations of low-income families, among others. 

MMSD distributed a survey regarding the importance of these issues to 76 families of students in Kennedy Elementary, Allis Elementary and Nuestro Mundo Community Schools to gauge parent and neighborhood concerns regarding the boundary change and which issues were most important to them. 

The results of the survey showed families were most concerned about high concentrations of low-income families and walk-ability to the schools.

Parents have also expressed their own worries.

Wesley Sparkman, a parent of an Allis Elementary student, said he was concerned students in overcrowded schools would not receive an equal amount of attention from their teachers compared to other schools in the district.

“The ratio of teachers to students should be equal in every school throughout the district,” he said.

Statz said this is a reason for concern because overcrowding can affect a student’s access to the teacher, possibly leading to poorer performance.

Lori Hillyer, a staff member in a La Follette area school, said overcrowding also has safety concerns for the building.

“I worry about safety in a building that is overcrowded and that students are spending unnecessary time transitioning from room to room,” she said. “They deserve a positive learning environment that is comfortable and familiar to them. This equity should exist in all of our schools across the state.”

To alleviate the overcrowding, MMSD has identified Nuestro Mundo, a public charter school for grades Kindergarten through fifth grade that currently shares a building with Allis Elementary, as one of the biggest variables in the overcrowding issue, Statz said.

If the school moved to another location, it would provide 14 available classrooms. The study group is currently looking into leasing space from Monona Grove School District.

This would free much needed space and serve as a good starting point for the two attendance areas to begin solving the overcroding problem, he said.

But why the overcrowding in certain areas and under crowding in others?

Statz said the disparity could be due to a common urban phenomenon where housing in certain locations is more appealing to younger families. This causes many families to move there and begin to have children, more or less at the same time.

However, other locations, in this case the East High School attendance area, are less appealing to young families, so there are fewer and fewer students attending these schools.

For more information and updates on the study group's progress, visit the MMSD website.