Jackson redraws district lines to better serve students

About 800 elementary-school students in Jackson will be affected by new district lines approved last week by the school board, but this is a positive move for student instruction, superintendent John Link said.

The Jackson School District has seven elementary schools, a middle school, junior high and high school.

Five of the seven elementary schools are in Jackson. The two outliers are in Gordonville and Millersville.

The district's strategic plan includes a goal of making all Jackson elementary schools kindergarten through fourth grades, except Gordonville and Millersville elementaries. Those buildings don't have the capacity, Link said, so they will be kindergarten through second grades instead.

That's already the case at Gordonville Elementary, but Millersville Elementary still has kindergarten through third grades.

Students from West Lane Elementary head to their busses after school Wednesday in Jackson.Andrew J. Whitaker

Next year, Millersville Elementary will cede its third-grade students to West Lane Elementary.

The goal is to remove as many building-to-building transitions as possible for students, Link said.

According to administrators' research, students do better if they have more than one year in a building, Link said.

Besides that, Link said, this change will allow students at the smaller Millersville Elementary to adjust to bigger schools.

Millersville has about 80 students, Link said. West Lane will have about 400 next year and the middle school about 800.

Students from West Lane Elementary head to their busses after school Wednesday in Jackson.Andrew J. Whitaker

That isn't the only change at West Lane, however.

West Lane Elementary now has grades three, four and five, Link said, while Orchard Drive Elementary is kindergarten through grade two.

The two schools are less than a mile apart, and making each school kindergarten through fourth grades will shift several students between buildings, but hopefully will make for a smoother path for students, Link said.

The same students who normally go to Orchard for three years and West Lane for two now will attend West Lane or Orchard from kindergarten until fourth grade, then move on to the middle school, Link said.

"It will impact roughly 800 students, but it won't be a dramatic impact," Link said. The central group shared by Orchard Drive Elementary and West Lane Elementary will be the same, but students now will attend one school or the other, rather than switching between second and third grades.

"It's a stairstep process we hope allows kids to adjust as they move up," Link said.

The middle school now has grades five and six, Link said, and this has freed up some classroom space and given the district an opportunity to hire more teachers.

"We'd like to reduce class sizes to below 25 students, and assist a little bit with student transitions [between schools]," Link said.

The junior high school has grades seven, eight and nine, but with the completion of the high school's freshmen-center addition, grade nine will move to the high school in August.

South, North and East Elementaries will not see a change at all, Link said.

The changes at Gordonville Elementary will clean up some boundary lines, Link added.

Boundary lines now will run mostly along streets rather than property lines, which should help parents moving into the area by giving a definitive answer to which school district serves each residence, Link said.

Gordonville Elementary already has kindergarten through second grades, Link said, and several students from the area already ride a bus to nearby South Elementary.

Link said the population in and around Gordonville continues to grow, and with more and more people living there and making the easy drive into Cape Girardeau to work, the school district will need to continue to address the school's needs.

"South Elementary is big enough that we can maintain Gordonville to a specific number of students, then offer the rest to come into South Elementary," Link said.

But the problem Gordonville Elementary faces is, it's a small facility that is basically landlocked, Link said.

Millersville Elementary has a little more room to expand if needed, Link said, but not much.

"They're both small community schools, and they mean a lot to their respective communities," Link said. "We respect that, and feel this is a good move to solidify those schools in their communities."

The district's strategic plan allows for a reassessment of Gordonville and Millersville elementaries' facilities in three to five years, Link added.

The district will send out information to parents after the school holiday to show new boundaries, Link said.

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

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