Guthrie Schools adopt elementary attendance zones

Guthrie Public Schools adopted their first elementary attendance zone map as the school district begins the transition of moving to neighborhood schools. The map will help determine what school building each student will attend next school year.

Superintendent Dr. Mike Simpson and Information Technologist Dee Benson presented two boundary map options at Monday night’s Board of Education meeting. The school board voted unanimously (7-0) to go with the map that keeps school children on buses for a shorter time, eliminates the number of buses needed and helps alleviate congested traffic at the Noble and Division intersection.

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Beginning with the 2018-19 school year, the district will go to neighborhood schools with students from kindergarten to the fourth grade in the same school building. All fifth and sixth grade students in the school district will continue to attend Guthrie Upper Elementary School.

Simpson says the school district continues to look at the pre-k program and where those students may be attending, but are unable to plot those out until enrollment numbers become available.

The superintendent added several parents in the southern portion of the district have shown interest from possibly moving their children from private school or homeschooling to Charter Oak Elementary.

“There are some variables and there is no way to control for those because we don’t know where those kids are right now, but we know they will be coming to us,” Simpson said.

Bus transportation is expected to be established for students that are outside a mile-and-a-half radius from the school that the child attends, which Simpson says is standard for neighborhood schools.

Along with the transportation remedies, the established boundary lines help balance class sizes at each of the four elementary schools.

The boundary map shows Central Elementary’s lines extend as far north as Highway 33 (Noble Ave.), east to I-35, south to Prairie Grove and west to the Cottonwood Creek.

Fogarty Elementary boundaries include north of Noble Ave. beginning at Division St. to the east, north of the Cimarron River to the northern and western edges of the school district and south to Seward Road to the east of I-35.

Cotteral Elementary will begin from the Cottonwood Creek to the western edge of the district and north to the Cimarron River. A portion of the southern edge will go to Seward Road (west from Pine St.), but majority of the line falls at W. Forrest Hills Road beginning at Coltrane Road.

The new Charter Oak Elementary will cover Seward Road to the south beginning just west of Coltrane Road and to the eastern part of the school district.