By Sara Ballenger

Along with the shuffling of schools has come the shuffling of attendance boundaries in the Los Altos School District.

The district had to redraw its boundaries after the decision to close Bullis-Purissima School and open Covington School, in efforts to equalize the number of students at each school in line with grade progressions.

On March 3 the board approved the following attendance boundary changes starting with the 2003-04 school year:

The board also approved an open enrollment process, which would allow students to attend a school outside of their own attendance area.

Parents who want their children to attend a school not in their attendance area can submit an Open Enrollment Request form to any school office by March 30 of the year prior to the year for which open enrollment is requested, according to the district.

The district hopes to have an open enrollment waiting list in place for each grade level at each school by April 5. Students will be placed on the waiting list based on the following priority, according to the district:

1. New open enrollment requests from students who previously attended that school but were reassigned because of a boundary change. Within this group, priority will be by number of years a student has attended that school; for a tie, order will be determined by a blind random drawing by Administrative Council.

2. Siblings of current open enrollment students.

3. Students who are applying for open enrollment for the first time, including kindergartners. Within this group, for all applications received by March 30, order of placement will be determined by lot.

4. Students whose application is received after March 30 will be placed on the waiting list in the order applications are received.

The district has also set the following guidelines in regards to the open enrollment policy:

Superintendent Marge Gratiot thinks the new boundaries are flexible enough to work with the grade progressions and future growth and changes in the district.

“The schools are balanced in a way that will minimize the need for combination classes and for portable classrooms,” Gratiot said. “Open enrollment should allow most parents to get their choice, while leaving the district the flexibility not to overload the classes if there is no space available.”

For more information, call the district office at 947-1150.

• Almond School: Some students would go to Springer and Covington, and the “Todd-Hollingsworth” neighborhood would stay at Almond, giving Almond a projection of 552 resident students.
• Springer School: Some students would go to Covington, giving Springer a projection of 384 resident students.
• Loyola School: Attendance boundaries would stay the same, giving Loyola 508 resident students.
• Bullis School: All students would be invited to attend Covington.
• Covington School: With students from Almond, Springer and Bullis, Covington would have a projection of 522 resident students.
• Oak Avenue School: Attendance boundaries would stay the same, with a projection of 434 students.
• The number of spaces available at each school and each grade level will be determined by the school principal by the end of April, subject to district class size guidelines of 20 students in the primary grades and 30 students in the upper grades, after all resident students and continuing open enrollment students have been placed.
• Principals shall have the right to reserve some spaces for new resident students expected to enroll after April 30, based on the school’s enrollment history.
• Once a student has been accepted at a school under the open enrollment option, that student is considered a resident of that school and does not need to reapply.
• Students who were placed at a school other than the school of their residence due to a lack of space will be reassigned to their school of residence if space becomes available the following year, unless a parent chooses to apply for open enrollment.