High school boundaries changed
ANDREA EGER World Staff Writer
04/20/2004
Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page A9 of News

A divided Tulsa school board votes 4-3 for the changes, which will go into effect in the fall.

A divided Tulsa school board approved new high school boundaries Monday.

The board voted 4-3 to approve Proposal C, which will move an Edison Preparatory School boundary north from 21st Street to the Broken Arrow Expressway for the 2004-05 academic year.

Tulsa Public Schools set out to change high school boundaries to end the busing of students who live near the magnet Booker T. Washington High School to schools in south and east Tulsa.

The new boundaries assign those students to the three neighborhood high schools nearest to them: Central, Rogers and the Tulsa High School for Science and Technology.

One residents group said the boundary changes could be detrimental to Washington-area students because the three schools to which they will be assigned have lower student achievement than the schools they currently attend.

"Those kinds of shifts would be putting students into a poorer academic environment," said Gary Allison, a member of TEACH, or Tulsa Education and Community Heritage.

"That shift is disadvantaging those students further. They've already been disadvantaged."

But a new divider between the Edison and Central High School attendance areas became the central issue in the board's debate over new boundaries.

Some Edison parents, including leaders of the school's parent association, asked that the 21st Street border not be moved north because the school is already becoming crowded.

Edison Principal Steve Mayfield said he worries that too much growth in enrollment too soon could keep him from expanding the school's popular 2-year-old magnet program.

"My concern is not what enrollment will be just in September '04 but '05, '06 and '07," Mayfield said. "We need to build on what we've created. I don't want (student) numbers to hamper us in any way."

But residents of the Maple Ridge neighborhood asked the board to change the boundary so that their entire neighborhood would be assigned to Edison and not divided as it has been between Edison and Central high schools.

The plan approved by board members Ruth Ann Fate, Bob bie Gray, Matt Livingood and Gary Percefull accomplishes that by moving the Edison boundary north to the Broken Arrow Expressway.

Members Michael Pierce and Cathy Newsome and Board President Paul Thomas cast the dissenting votes.

The approved boundary changes do not affect the attendance areas of Memorial or Webster high schools.