Education

Parents attend emotional meeting a Morning Star Elementary School

Posted: Feb 6, 2013 10:18 PM by Judy Slate
Updated: Feb 7, 2013 9:00 AM

BOZEMAN - About 50 parents attended a meeting Wednesday night at Morning Star Elementary School to learn more about the school district's plan to redraw attendance boundaries in anticipation of the new elementary school slated to open next fall.

The district hopes to move about 100 children out of Morning Star. Some of the kids could attend Irving, Hyalite or Longfellow.

The meeting was at times emotional as parents voiced their concerns over moving their children to schools that are further away. Many are also concerned about losing their neighborhood school.

Many parents we talked to say they felt school officials were listening to their concerns and realize there will be changes.

"We have a lot of apprehension about it, but at the same time, I think we live in a great community and all of our schools are awesome and we just have to pull ourselves together and rally," said Jamie Hurd.

Emily Dickenson is another school that will see some major changes to attendance boundaries. Almost every school will be affected in some way with the exception of Hawthorne and Whittier.

The district will be holding several more meetings to gather input from parents and hope to have a recommendation to the school board by the end of the month with the final boundaries redrawn by spring break.

The new boundaries go into effect in the fall of 2014.