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Redistricting - Fall 2024

The redistricting feedback boards are no longer accepting comments, but they are still available for viewing.

This Forum is now closed.

REDISTRICTING OVERVIEW:
In the fall of 2025, Park Hill School District will open Angeline Washington Elementary, the district’s 12th elementary. With twelve elementary schools and four middle schools, the district will need to establish new boundaries that create a “direct feeder” model in which three elementary schools will go to one middle school. The balanced enrollments at Congress and Plaza Middle Schools will feed Park Hill High School and balanced enrollments at Lakeview and Walden Middle Schools will feed Park Hill South High School. You can learn more about Redistricting, including the criteria and evaluation metrics, on the district website. You can also view our current boundaries and background data.

Please note that we are providing six scenarios for feedback. These scenarios are based on the Redistricting Advisory Team's initial scores from their meeting and evaluation of maps. Note that in these six scenarios, some have direct feeder patterns and some do not. We are looking for your feedback on all of the scenarios.

Before exploring and commenting on the redistricting scenarios below, take a moment to hear from the team at Woolpert, our Redistricting and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analysis firm, to gain insight into the process and understand how these scenarios were developed.

And if you would like to view each scenario and how your specific address falls within each of these scenarios, please see our interactive map.

Again, please scroll below to see all six scenarios and provide your feedback. Within each scenario there will be a linked document that pops up in a new window detailing the map and associated data. You will then provide your feedback where it says "New Post" within the scenario.





This Forum is now closed.

REDISTRICTING OVERVIEW:
In the fall of 2025, Park Hill School District will open Angeline Washington Elementary, the district’s 12th elementary. With twelve elementary schools and four middle schools, the district will need to establish new boundaries that create a “direct feeder” model in which three elementary schools will go to one middle school. The balanced enrollments at Congress and Plaza Middle Schools will feed Park Hill High School and balanced enrollments at Lakeview and Walden Middle Schools will feed Park Hill South High School. You can learn more about Redistricting, including the criteria and evaluation metrics, on the district website. You can also view our current boundaries and background data.

Please note that we are providing six scenarios for feedback. These scenarios are based on the Redistricting Advisory Team's initial scores from their meeting and evaluation of maps. Note that in these six scenarios, some have direct feeder patterns and some do not. We are looking for your feedback on all of the scenarios.

Before exploring and commenting on the redistricting scenarios below, take a moment to hear from the team at Woolpert, our Redistricting and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analysis firm, to gain insight into the process and understand how these scenarios were developed.

And if you would like to view each scenario and how your specific address falls within each of these scenarios, please see our interactive map.

Again, please scroll below to see all six scenarios and provide your feedback. Within each scenario there will be a linked document that pops up in a new window detailing the map and associated data. You will then provide your feedback where it says "New Post" within the scenario.





The redistricting feedback boards are no longer accepting comments, but they are still available for viewing.

Do you have a question about the redistricting process? 

We will answer most questions privately, but we might post some of the questions and answers here, publicly. You will receive an email when we respond. Please check your spam folder to make sure you don't miss it.

  • We live at 12018 NW River Rd. Parkville MO 64152. The current map scenario map says that we are in lakeview district but my daughter goes to Walden. When the boundaries changed last time we were told she was switching from union chapel to graden but was told last minute they made a mistake and she was to stay at union chapel. Can you correct the current scenario map and make sure our address designation is correct for the other scenarios so that doesn’t happen again?

    Ladawlin asked 3 months ago

    We've got this address/area flagged to review. Thank you for connecting about this specifically!

  • Two suggestions/questions: First, many of the patrons giving feedback (like, don't like, no, doesn't work for us, works for us) are not specifying what area they are, so it's entirely unhelpful. Is it possible to request people include their area with their comments? Second, it is obvious that having both transportation distance and socio-economic balance at the same 3 multiplyer is just not going to be possible. Will the committee decide which one needs to be the most important to them and change the importance and then make changes to the existing map scenarios? Thanks.

    RLH asked 3 months ago

    Yes, it would be helpful if comments included specifics. Those comments that do provide specifics are helpful to the advisory team and internal folks reviewing the data. We will be adjusting the scenarios based on feedback moving forward. As you can most likely see from the comments, there seems to be overwhelming sentiments about priorities. The advisory team will take these sentiments into consideration.

  • I’m wondering why each school at every level shows the same capacity in each scenario? This is very different than what is published in the 2023-24 Demographic Profile and Enrollment Projections. Page 92, Number 6 is “Right sized facilities with capacity flexibility”, showing elementary 400-650 students, middle 500-900, high 1200-1800. Page 93 gives a square footage per student, with a target, high and low. Page 94 has each school square footage and each schools effective capacity using the target square footage per student. Renner, the smallest school shows the effective capacity at 418 students (including mobile classrooms) and Tiffany Ridge (largest) shows 603. Balanced enrollment must factor is school size as well, yet 450 each does not. Please advise.

    RLH asked 3 months ago

    Enrollment balance and school capacity are major considerations in our decisions moving forward. If you look at the 2024-25 utilization column and the 2029-30 utilization column in each of the scenarios, you'll see how we are trying to balance student numbers at each location. There will not be a perfect balance, but we're trying to get close based on each of schools' capacities and footprint. 

  • Looking at previous documentation and data provided for Hopewell Elementary shows current enrolment ~470, but with a building capacity of 586. I understand one goal of redistricting is to have even numbers across the schools, but I'm not sure understand the reasoning behind this. Especially when the newer schools have 20,000-25,000 additional square feet. With Union Chapel being slotted as a complete teardown and rebuild as the next the major district project why are we even bothering with redistricting. Why can't all the current UC students just move the new elementary since as a new school it should certainly accommodate the current enrollment of 593. Furthermore, projections show enrollment declining in future years so its possible we wouldn't even need to overhaul UC. Was this even a consideration, it wouldn't impact any current boundaries.

    MAV2 asked 3 months ago

    This is received.

  • Hello - First, thank you for your hard work in executing the plans necessary to grow the Park Hill School district to meet the needs of our growing population and the families of the district. I know change is challenging and that meeting the needs of everyone is not realistic. I have been carefully reviewing the scenarios presented and they all have their merits and faults. Our neighborhoods are our communities. We all form relationships within our communities that last a lifetime. For that reason, I have a difficult time overlooking the split of communities/subdivisions in many of the scenarios presented. I asked myself, "How did that happen?" which led me to better understand the process undertaken by the committee. I appreciate the information provided outlining the stated goals, measurement, and weighting. My question pertains to the Measurement of Criteria #4 (Maintain Subdivisions). The criteria states "intact subdivision counts" as the measurement. Does this measurement factor in the size of neighborhoods, number of households, and number of students impacted? My concern is that if each neighborhood counts as one intact subdivision, the real impact of splitting larger neighborhoods is not properly reflected in the board's evaluation of each scenario's impact on the stated goals. My second question pertains to the weighting of goals. How was the weighting of each goal determined? I believe the goal weighting of #1 and #5 are reasonable. I would be interested in understanding how the weighting of #2, #3, and #4 were determined as they appear to be a bit arbitrary at 3, 3, and 2. Was there a justification for applying a different weighting to #4 (keeping subdivisions intact) vs. #2 and #3? Thank you sincerely for your time.

    TmH asked 3 months ago

    The district and Board of Education worked on the redistricting criteria and weights throughout the summer months. At the July Board meeting, the Board discussed at length the criteria and weights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDec1wNdX-s&list=PLx1JUFjzcYUBHI_4cjgr6C3m5G9H4I1-r&index=11. Start at 39:00 to hear the redistricting conversation.

  • I do not understand why even enrollment numbers are being given so much weight over keeping neighborhoods together. On many of these scenarios, the newest schools that would have the biggest square footage, flex space, special needs spaces etc. have the smallest utilization rate. Graden grows in every one of these scenarios and is the oldest school in the district. Adding another 40 students will just exasperate existing space issues. I would much rather see larger numbers at the newer schools and keeping neighborhoods intact vs. moving kids around for equal number when equal number doesn't mean equal resources given the size of buildings.

    MAV3 asked 3 months ago

    This is received.

  • Has the fact that middle schoolers need the most rest, and start school the earliest, been taken into consideration? Several scenarios show the area of 152 and Hampton traveling all the way to Walden. This disrupts sleep even more and requires longer bus routes.

    Mec asked 3 months ago

    This is received and noted. Yes, transportation times are a consideration in our process.

  • Will new boundaries be in consideration when combining schools for summer school? If there are schools with more kids moving to one school vs another? For example: most of our neighborhood will be switching from Renner to Prairie Point regardless of scenario as 6 of 6 have us switching. It would be awesome if those schools were combined for summer school so the kids could meet new friends but still have some friends with them over the summer to make the transition easier/smoother.

    bWarren asked 3 months ago

    Great point. We will certainly take this into consideration!

  • I had another idea about redistricting. I understand that part of the criteria is mixing low income versus higher income people together. Instead of doing that what if going forward we had a policy that PTAs and schools do not raise money for themselves. Instead all of the money would go to the district and then every school would get the same amount of money. That way the schools that had the lower income kids would still get the same amount of money as the schools with the higher income kids. It was just an idea and may help with trying to make everybody happy with this redistricting policy. In my opinion having the same number of rich kids and poor kids in each school is not as important as keeping neighborhoods together. And it's definitely not as important as feeding 100 percent of schools into the same schools. And making these long bus routes just to mix poor kids and rich kids just seems kind of silly to me. I grew up on the poor side of town and I didn't even know it until we got into Middle School and mixed with the rich kids. I don't think elementary kids really even notice that kind of thing. And honestly the poor kids are probably more comfortable all being together. For me it was kind of a shock when I met these new rich kids.

    Karen M Powell asked 3 months ago

    This is received.

  • Given how large some some subdivisions have gotten over the years, I understand having to split some for elementary purposes. But can you please explain why keeping them divided for middle school purposes makes sense? That is the case for The National on a few of the scenarios. Going to school with those you share and immediate "community" with has a huge impact on one's "sense of belonging" at a school. This also applies to elementary schools, why does having a kid drive past 2 or even 3 schools to go to another school for "socioeconomic" equality get so much more weight than proximity?

    MAV3 asked 3 months ago

    We understand your sentiments. We are working through this piece of feedback to see where student movement most makes sense. Thank you for sharing.