Redrawn Boundaries Spark Parent Protest

Residents of the Bernardo Point community packed Monday night's school board meeting to protest , only to learn many of their fears may not be realized.

More than two dozen speakers pleaded for the board to reconsider the changes approved in , which will redraw school attendance boundaries and send students from Bernardo Point to Turtleback Elementary, Bernardo Heights Middle and Rancho Bernardo High School instead of Monterey Ridge Elementary, Oak Valley Middle and Del Norte High School.

Many seemed to be under the impression that their children would have to adhere to the new boundaries in fall 2012, uprooting the students from their current campuses, but Superintendent John Collins said that won't happen.

Even those who are advancing from one level to the next in the coming year—say elementary to middle school—probably won't have to worry about being rerouted to Bernardo Heights instead of Oak Valley, even though they will have to put in a transfer request, Collins said.

Down the road, it may be a different story, Collins said.

"I can't promise it and I won't promise it and the board won't promise it," Collins said.

The issue comes as the 4S Ranch schools the Bernardo Point students attend—especially Monterey Ridge Elementary—are filling up to the point that the 4S residents who are paying special fees for the construction of the schools can't get a seat in their home campus. Students from outside of 4S Ranch—Bernardo Point is tucked between RB and 4S—had been allowed to attend the campuses as they grew, but now that the schools are filling up that will change.

Collins said no students will be asked to leave the campuses they currently attend, and it is likely, though not guaranteed, that Oak Valley and Del Norte will have enough space to accommodate all of the intradistrict transfer requests from students who are advancing to those levels over the next several years. However, by the time a first-grader at Monterey Ridge Elementary who lives in Bernardo Point reaches middle school, Oak Valley may not have enough space, Collins said.

"I don't have a crystal ball," he said.

Families, including one military family that said their daughter had been in seven different schools, expressed concern that their children would be separated from their friends and the school communities that they had helped create.

"We can throw rocks into the backyard of Monterey Ridge Elementary School," said David Krueger, one of the parents from Bernardo Point.

The close proximity of the 4S schools had been a selling point for the homes, many residents said. Their children can walk and ride their bikes to school, which won't be the case when they have to attend Turtleback, which is separated from the community by businesses, and Bernardo Heights and RB High on the opposite side of Interstate 15.

It will also be difficult to drive both a middle and high schooler to the new schools because of their different start times—45 minutes apart— which isn't enough time to drive home and back, but also isn't close enough to drop them off at the same time, one mother said.

Collins said he understands the frustrations, but the district must provide space in the 4S schools to the residents there who are paying the special Community Facilities District (CFD) fees for them.

Some Bernardo Point residents contended they, too, were paying those fees, but Collins said their fees were for the modernization of other schools. He also pushed back against those who alleged the district had made the changes with "malicious" intent.

"We are not going to change these boundaries back," Collins said.

Find us on Facebook and Twitter @RBPatch.