Glendale school officials look to expand boundaries to alleviate Balboa Elementary growth

To alleviate an ongoing influx of students into Balboa Elementary, Glendale school officials are eyeing Mark Keppel and Benjamin Franklin elementary magnet schools and making plans to revert back to their former geographic attendance boundaries, which were larger.

Back in 2010, Glendale Unified received a grant worth more than $7.4 million. The next year, school officials began to transform Franklin Elementary into a foreign-language magnet and Mark Keppel into a school that specializes in visual and performing arts. Thomas Edison Elementary became a technology magnet.

But with those federal funds came strings attached, and Glendale Unified had to comply with new enrollment procedures.

The new magnet schools were required to accept students from within the city’s boundaries and beyond, as well as students who would otherwise attend schools with a “Program Improvement” label.

The label, which has been phased out with the No Child Left Behind Act, was given to Title 1 schools that were receiving federal funds but were not progressing at rates according to federal measurements.

In the past four years during which Glendale Unified spent the federal dollars, their geographic boundaries shrank to make room for students enrolling throughout Glendale and beyond. Edison’s boundaries also contracted, but Cerritos Elementary, which is a little more than a mile away, was not heavily impacted. .

Meanwhile, Balboa’s boundaries expanded, meaning it was accepting more students who otherwise would have attended Keppel.

The altered attendance priorities resulted in Balboa’s student population growing from 540 students in 2010 to 730 during the last school year, when parents began to make repeated requests for a crossing guard because of increased traffic around campus.

Now, with the grant funds spent, Glendale school officials are allowed to again use the former boundaries at Franklin and Keppel, while also giving enrollment priority to siblings of students who already attend those schools.

Glendale students who live within half a mile of those campuses will also have an advantage when enrolling, and students who live outside of Glendale will be given the least priority under the revised plan.

About 24 students — an entire kindergarten class — would not attend Balboa Elementary annually under the proposed change, said Kelly King, assistant superintendent of Glendale Unified. They would instead attend Keppel.

School board member Christine Walters welcomed the change that would mitigate Balboa’s student growth, and give parents who live near Keppel a greater guarantee that their children can attend there.

“I live where parents park to walk to school for Keppel… and I had neighbors that were initially on the waiting list to get in and they weren’t happy,” she said. “Fortunately, they did make their way through the waiting list, but it would be pretty painful to watch people parking in front of your house to walk to the school that you’re not able to go to.”

The school board is expected to vote on the revised attendance boundaries during its meeting on Dec. 9.