Overcrowding at Bear Creek Elementary School has led to the redrawing of attendance zones for Bear Creek and Grapevine elementaries, school officials announced.
Administrators revised their preliminary rezoning plan in February after receiving survey results from parents of students affected by the change, as well as updated demographic information.The change will affect 43 current Bear Creek students during the 2013-14 school year, and by the next academic year, their siblings will join them and bring the total of transition students to 56.Additionally, 20 more students will be allowed to voluntarily make the transfer from Bear Creek to Grapevine if they wish.The redrawn area moving students from Bear Creek to Grapevine Elementary is bounded by Baze Road, Glade Road, Kathleen Lane and Augustine Drive.Middle and high school feeder patterns will not change for either campus. Both schools feed into Heritage Middle School and Colleyville Heritage High School.Bear Creek's enrollment, according to Texas Education Agency numbers reported in October 2012, is 789 students. Grapevine Elementary's number is 482 students."I did hear from a pretty fair number of parents from that section of Grapevine and Colleyville," Trustee Becky St. John said at a recent board meeting. "The experience I had was that most of the parents were OK with this."Their greater concern was if the change would affect their middle school and high school alignment."Trustee Jesse Rodriguez asked what would happen if fewer than 20 students chose voluntary transfer."Our goal all along was to transfer about 75 students and bring down Bear Creek to about 700 students over two years," said chief operating officer Paula Barbaroux. The new demographic numbers convinced administrators that they could rezone fewer students than they originally thought, and depend on voluntary transfers more to reach their desired number.Some 29 families with a combined 35 students indicated a willingness to make a transfer, Barbaroux said.The transfer process will begin later this month, and parents will get a chance to visit Grapevine Elementary for themselves.At the same meeting at which the rezoning was approved, trustees had to pass a request for a maximum class size exception from the state for two additional second-grade classrooms at Bear Creek. The state's recommended class size for grade levels four and under is 22 students to one teacher.The Grapevine-Colleyville district has had to ask for class-size waivers several times this school year.Shirley Jinkins, 817-390-7657Twitter: @startelegramHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
