The Appleton Area School District Board of Education met 01/27/2025. One of the items they discussed and voted on was the request to set new attendance boundaries for Edison Elementary school to be effective for the 2025-2026 school year.
This was prompted by the decision to close Columbus Elementary school and the need to move those students into a new school. The Board ended up voting unanimously to change the Edison Elementary attendance boundaries to include:
- The entire existing Columbus attendance area.
- The Franklin Elementary School attendance area south of Wisconsin Avenue
- The Dunlap Elementary School attendance area east of Richmond Street
There was some discussion about how open enrollment worked, particularly as it pertained to students with special needs if their parents found themselves in the Edison attendance area but did not want to go to Edison, but there were no major concerns about the change, and, again, the Board voted unanimously to approve the new attendance area boundaries.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
The Board received a PowerPoint presentation on the proposed changes to Edison’s attendance area.
There had initially been three options, but the AASD Leadership Team recommended that all of Columbus be moved to Edison as well as the section of Franklin south of Wisconsin Avenue and the section of Dunlap east of Richmond. The changes to Franklin’s and Dunlap’s attendance areas were prompted by a desire to not have students crossing the busy streets of Wisconsin and Richmond. The increased attendance area was estimated to have a minimal impact on Edison in terms of both enrollment capacity and the demographic make-up of the student body.
It was noted that the feeder pattern for students who are currently in the Dunlap attendance area would change. Dunlap students feed into Wilson Middle School and the West High School whereas students in the Edison attendance area feed into Kaleidoscope and North.
They solicited feedback from the impacted neighborhoods and received 5 completed surveys in response. Per Superintendent Greg Hartjes “When asked the question, do you support adding the current Franklin attendance area, south of Wisconsin Avenue, four out of the five strongly supported, and one supported. And then we asked the question, do you support adding the current Dunlap attendance area, which is the east of Richmond? Three out of the five strongly supported, one supported, and one did not support. So overall, very strong support for both the Franklin addition and the Dunlap addition. We did ask a question, ‘do you live in either of those attendance areas?’ None of the five live in the attendance areas. We didn’t get any feedback from individuals living in those attendance areas.”
There was some discussion about what options parents would have if they were moved into the new Edison attendance area but their children were attending Franklin or Dunlap. Students can open enroll into another school in the district through the School of Choice program. Any students that were currently attending Franklin or Dunlap could continue at those school through 5th grade. Additionally, it was noted that when an older sibling is open enrolled into a school outside their attendance area, a younger sibling can receive automatic approval to attend as well. They will still need to fill out an open enrollment application, but approval will be automatic.
There was discussion about whether students who needed special education services would be able to get into the school of their choice or if they face the prospect of denial. Broadly speaking, it sounded like students who had general cross categorical servicing needs would typically be able to successfully open enroll into the elementary school of their choice provided that they submitted their application in a timely manner during the application period prior to when staffing decisions were made for the upcoming school year. If they waited until after the deadline when staffing levels had already been set, they might find their applications denied.
Beyond that, a student could be prevented from open enrolling if the school they wanted to attend was above capacity, but right now that was a minimal factor. Superintendent Hartjes told the Board, “And we’re in a unique time in Appleton in that we just added an elementary school and added capacity at our middle schools and our high schools. And so why boundaries are needed is when a school gets to capacity, and so that’s when you’re only guaranteed enrollment at that school if you live in that attendance area. So as recent as two years ago, Houdini, Highlands, Huntley were all closed. Barry’s been closed sometimes in the last five years. You think of others. So anyway, it has been relevant to us, and it could potentially become relevant again as Einstein is above capacity.”
Additionally, if a student required extensive services, they might not even be able to be served by their local neighborhood school. In those cases, District staff would talk to the parents about which schools had staff and programs that would be able to meet their children’s needs. [The terms IDS and SCBD were mentioned and I’m not 100% certain what they mean. I would guess that IDS refers to students with intellectual disabilities and SCBD may refer to children with physical disabilities such a blindness and deafness, but I’m not sure. I only mention those to provide context to the sorts of issues that would prevent a student from not only being able to open enroll into the school of their choice but possibly not even be able to attend their neighborhood school.]
The Board voted unanimously to approve the new boundaries for Edison Elementary as requested by District staff.
View full meeting details here: https://go.boarddocs.com/wi/aasd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=DBVU3K7A19FC
View full meeting video here: https://www.youtube.com/live/W-S6n-E9k5o?si=qc1wddwLqdSvh3z7
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