New schools mean some students forced to change

Thirteen-year-old Jennifer Dalrymple was still wiping tears away after an emotional school rezoning meeting Thursday.

"It's not fair," the seventh-grader said.

With that, Jennifer summed up the beliefs of many in a crowd of 120 parents who had gathered at Chaparral High School for a meeting of the Clark County School District's Attendance Zone Advisory Commission, or AZAC.

Most parents came to object to AZAC's plan to move students from Green Valley High School to the new Foothill High School.

"It's causing real hard feelings and breaking the community apart," Jennifer told the committee earlier in the meeting. "My friends live across the street. I'm going to Foothill and they're going to Green Valley."

AZAC is charged with the job of redrawing school attendance boundaries when new schools open. Foothill High, at College and Heather drives in Henderson, is one of three new schools opening in Clark County in August.

The district is also opening Centennial High School in the far northwest near Centennial Parkway and Hualapai Way and Desert Pines High School near Washington Boulevard and Sandhill Road.

After months of redrawing school zone maps and listening to parent concerns, AZAC made a final decision Thursday night on the Foothill boundary, voting to alleviate crowding at Green Valley High School by sending some students to Foothill.

The School Board will make the final decision on the boundaries at 5:30 p.m. March 3, at the Education Center, 2832 E. Flamingo Road.

"We'll take this to the board," Jennifer's father, John Dalrymple, pledged. The Dalrymples live on the south side of Wigwam Avenue -- just inside the Foothill zone. Students living on the north side of Wigwam would attend Green Valley.

"She literally has all her friends living on the other side of the street," Cathy Dalrymple, Jennifer's mother, said.

According to district figures, 3,070 students will attend Green Valley next year, 3,570 students will attend Silverado High School, 2,097 will go to the new Foothill High, and 2,283 to Basic High. That means Green Valley and Silverado would still be crowded.

The rezoning process is an emotional one for parents, students and the committee members. Most do not want to be moved.

Several AZAC members said they had been forced to make a difficult decision that was bound to make some parents upset.

"This is not a lose-lose situation -- we heard that several times tonight and that's not right," Colleen Hutchinson said. "If our children are in less crowded schools, then they have more opportunities."

Committee member Joyce Seegmiller, exhausted by the emotional process and who was also wiping away tears by the end of the night, said, "We did our best."

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