The Holmen School District has two listening sessions planned next week to get public input on changes in elementary school attendance boundaries.

The first listening session will run from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 13, at Holmen High School in the Trygve Mathison Fine Arts Center. The session will start at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 14, at the same location.

Boundary changes are necessary because of the fall 2009 opening of the district’s fourth K-5 school, Prairie View Elementary.

After voters approved construction of the new school, the Holmen School Board appointed an Elementary Boundaries Committee, which has been meeting since December 2007 to develop a recommendation for presentation to the board this spring.

Most recently, the committee’s focus has been the study of student needs and community demographics.

The board-approved boundaries would not go into full affect until the new school opening, which is more than a year away.

“This timeline better enables us to help families and the district transition to the boundary changes,” said Jay Clark, the district’s support services director and chairman of the boundary committee. “During the year, we can better study the potential impact of boundary changes to see if any tweaking needs to occur before the opening of Prairie View Elementary,”

The committee is using the district’s past experience with elementary boundary adjustments as a starting point. The district went through a similar adjustment in 1999 when opening its third K-5 school, Sand Lake Elementary.

The district made further adjustments to attendance boundaries in the 2003-04 school year as elementary enrollment continued to grow. The 2003-04 adjustments resulted in the implementation of seven attendance boundary strategies by the district.

“Elementary attendance boundaries are a dynamic issue for us,” Clark said. “In addition to our continued student population growth, our student population centers keep shifting as new neighborhoods are developed.”

The current total capacity of the three district elementary schools is 1,580 students. The fall 2008 elementary enrollment is forecast to be 1,590. Fall 2009 projections predict elementary enrollment of 1,607.

Without capacity to serve students at the existing elementary schools the committee is preparing a proposal to redistribute some of the current students among the four schools.

“The challenge exists because people like their current school. We feel good about that,” Clark said. “Yet, if no attendance boundary adjustments are made, existing schools will become overcrowded. Overcrowded schools are not as effective.”

“Ironically,” said Neal Janssen, Sand Lake Elementary principal and boundary committee member, “most of the positive attributes listed by parents with children attending Sand Lake Elementary would be the same for those having children attending school at one of our other elementary schools. We are fortunate to have wonderful staff and excellent facilities at all our schools.”

The committee’s early work has looked at proximity, educational factors, transportation and grade/school size. The committee will present information and preliminary adjusted boundaries to the community at next week’s listening sessions.

People who can’t make it to the listening sessions also will find a spot on the district’s Web site (www.holmen.k12.wi.us) to post comments.

“Community involvement and input is important to us,” Clark said.