Over the next six years, many Murrieta students in middle and elementary schools could shift to different schools under plans the school board is considering.
As the Murrieta Valley Unified School District grapples with crowding at many campuses, officials decided to change school attendance boundaries as they get ready for new homes that will put more students in district desks.
RELATED: Murrieta schools begin discussion about changing attendance boundaries
By changing attendance lines the district hopes to balance out campus populations, particularly on the west side of Murrieta, where much of the housing development will be.
“As a new board with a series of new challenges it is important to work together as a community to take on those challenges, redistricting is just one of those challenges,” board President Nick Pardue said Thursday night, Jan. 23.
In December, the district held two meetings to get parents’ feedback on three proposed maps that would change which schools students attend.
After hearing the community’s input, a committee narrowed the field to one map, which the board discussed Thursday. No vote was taken and the board has not chosen a date to again address the issue.
Three maps were presented and show elementary, middle and high schools. The first option went to the community in December and received more than 2,000 responses. The second map was the committee’s revision after hearing from the public.
The maps were presented by a Redistricting Advisory Committee assembled in partnership with Woolpert, a consultant working with the district. The committee has 20 members and includes current and former district parents, residents, one district staff member, two district teachers and a former PTA president.
Murrieta Valley started the process in 2023 after a meeting with the city projected 8,000 new homes in the city.
In a July presentation from Woolpert, school board members learned that, in the next two years, Murrieta Elementary School would reach 105% capacity and in the next 10 years the school would be at 168% of its capacity. Generally, schools should be in the 80-90% range to allow for flexibility and special education students.
Under the proposal, the boundary change would be phased in over six years, beginning with newly registered students in Murrieta. For example, new preschool- and kindergarten-aged children would start at a school designated by the new boundary lines in the 2025-26 school year.
Students now in elementary school would move to a different school as shown on the new map in sixth grade when they begin middle school. For example, today’s third graders would be subject to the boundary change in the 2027-28 school year.
The proposed timeline would have all students moved to comply with the new boundary lines in the 2031-32 school year.
Phasing in the map over time will allow the district to adjust staff and lead families into the move “gently,” Superintendent Ward Andrus said.
“This is intended to give us, in essence, a long runway,” Andrus said.
Board members raised concerns about transporting students across the city, creating traffic, balancing the elementary schools to approximately 1,000 students each and questioned how the district would handle staffing.
The board seemed to agree on one point: not changing attendance boundaries for the high schools.
Board member Nancy Young said that data show there wouldn’t be a large change in the high schools’ enrollment numbers and noted those campuses are built for larger populations.
The district has a history of allowing students to transfer to the high school of their choice because these schools have unique programs that cannot be replicated at every campus, Andrus said.
Other board members agreed with Young that leaving high schools alone seemed the best course.
The board asked district officials to balance out enrollment at elementary schools to keep them at or below 1,000 students. Trustees also asked them to address busing concerns and keep high school’s boundaries the same.
The district has two schools, Cole Canyon and Lisa J. Mails elementary schools, at over 1,000 students, while Murrieta Elementary School is projected to reach 1,000 students in 2034. The average elementary school in California has about 500 students, Andrus said.
The Murrieta school district finds itself in this situation after the board decided not to ask voters to consider a school bond measure on the November ballot that would have raised money to construct a school on the city’s west side to help alleviate crowding.
That decision came in August, when a 3-2 board vote kept a $200 million bond off the ballot. The proposal failed because four of five trustees did not support putting the question to voters.
Among the new neighborhoods coming to town are 3,043 apartments OK’d by the Murrieta City Council in 2023. More than 1,000 of these would be affordable housing.
If the board chooses not to approve new boundary lines, it could have to look at busing students to overflow schools, Deputy Superintendent Darren Daniel said.
To address campus crowding, Murrieta has been verifying students’ addresses, limiting transfers and closing some schools to transfers.
Updates on school boundaries can be found by clicking here.
