Boundary changes yield smaller student body at East Elementary

Jefferson City Public Schools Superintendent, Larry Linthacum hosts Coffee with Larry on Friday, Sept. 1, 2017 in the Miller Performing Arts Center lobby.
Jefferson City Public Schools Superintendent, Larry Linthacum hosts Coffee with Larry on Friday, Sept. 1, 2017 in the Miller Performing Arts Center lobby.

Updates given at this month's community coffee event with Jefferson City Public Schools' Superintendent Larry Linthacum on Friday morning included enrollment and attendance numbers, in addition to new information about the district's two high school projects.

After reviewing the district's updated strategic game plan for the audience of about 10 community members plus some JCPS staff and board members, Linthacum shared the district's enrollment at the most recent count stands at 8,714 students, compared to 8,658 the same time last year.

As of Thursday, enrollment at East Elementary School was at 286 students, the second lowest in the district after Callaway Hills Elementary School at 284. This time last year, East Elementary had 399 students, and Linthacum said the school's average class size of 16 students is now the smallest in the district.

The district made some minor boundary line adjustments earlier this year after community concerns were raised that East Elementary was overcrowded. The changes were designed to shift some students to Thorpe Gordon Elementary and, to a lesser, extent Moreau Heights Elementary.

"Our plan worked," Jason Hoffman, the district's chief operating and financial officer, said Friday.

Linthacum added he expects a report by the end of September from Business Information Services LLC, the demographer the district has asked to create and analyze models for future, more comprehensive boundary line changes to better suit having two high schools while maintaining socioeconomic equity on both sides of the city.

Attendance across the district in the first 10 days of school was at 99.7 percent, and this number reflects a hit from the day of the eclipse, he said.

Enrollment typically doesn't settle until the third Wednesday of September, he added, which is also when the state makes its official count used as the baseline for the year.

Regarding other types of foundations, the Architects Alliance principal architect Cary Gampher said around 700,000 cubic yards of dirt and rock likely will have to be moved at the site of the district's future second high school off Missouri 179 at Mission Drive.

Gampher said meetings with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources have been addressing water drainage at the site and when certain kinds of trees can be removed to protect endangered species. Discussions with Jefferson City officials also have been happening about how to align neighboring infrastructure improvements with the timeline of the high school project, as the city did with work on Myrtle Avenue and completion of Helias High School's new Crusader Athletic Complex.

The two high school projects are in the design development phase, Gampher said.

Linthacum said a plan now exists for the process of naming the new high school and determining a mascot and school colors, but it's not yet finalized enough to share widely. He said it will be presented to the Board of Education then distributed once it's ready.

Ground-breaking at the site of the second high school is set for January, though Gampher said the earth-moving work he described will look like construction before foundation excavations happen later in the spring. New construction at the current high school will start in earnest once school is out in May, he added.