2024-25 Attendance Zones Approved

We spend lots of hours with our demographers trying to balance out the campuses and prepare for the growth that is coming. We use a program through our demographer (Zonda Education) that has every student located on a map. When we start drawing these lines, we move the lines around to get the most balanced capacity numbers for every campus in our district to get these boundaries.

During this process, we check that they match the following criteria:

• Balanced as possible
• Room for future growth
• Prevent force transfers during the middle of the school year
• Impact the fewest students
• Maximize staffing resources
• Impact on special programs such as bilingual or special needs students
• Move students as few times as possible

Being a fast growth district, our attendance zones could be impacted every year. With two new facilities coming online in August 2024, we had to move students around to make the most balanced student load at each campus.

As much as we wish we could allow parents and guardians to choose where their students go, we cannot allow appeals to any zoning changes. If we start allowing people to choose where they attend, our campuses could become more unbalanced, which would impact the educational experiences of students at multiple campuses.

While we have entertained exceptions and grandfathering before when we had fewer campuses and fewer students, we have reached a point in our growth that exceptions can cause unbalanced campuses. All students zoned for a campus will be required to attend the campus they are zoned for based on their residency address. All of our administrators and staff will do their best to make sure every student feels at home no matter what campus they are on.

This is not something we allow. School choice is not offered in this District. Whatever campus you are zoned for based on your residency address is the campus your students must attend.

Yes - if you do not live within two miles of your new campus, or if your residency is not designated a walk zone by the CISD board, then you can notify the transportation department during 2024-25 enrollment that your students will need to ride the bus.

You can find all of our Community ISD campuses on Google Maps, and all of our currently occupied campuses have website profiles and active social media. We're creating new social media pages for Community Trails Middle School and Ellis Elementary now, and when July 2024 rolls around we'll launch new campus webpages for those schools as well.

Locations of Community ISD schools:

• Community High School
• Edge Middle School
• Opening August 2024 - Community Trails Middle School
• McClendon Elementary
• NeSmith Elementary
• Roderick Elementary
• Dodson Elementary
• Opening August 2024 -Ellis Elementary
   

No. Our newest elementary campus opening in August 2024 in Josephine is named after Mildred B. Ellis, a former Community ISD teacher and a member of the Braves Hall of Honor.

Secondary campuses will not be named after people, though Leland Edge Middle School is grandfathered into this ruling as an existing campus before the policy was made. New campuses will be "Community ___", such as Community Trails Middle School (opening in August 2024 in Lavon) and Community Creek Middle School (opening TBD) in Josephine.

The red lines on the first map we released on social media represented the current 2023-24 attendance zones. We have since added higher quality maps without those red lines to prevent any confusion, and to increase readability. We're also working on an updated searchable map which will be released before the 2024-25 school year begins.

Yes, but not as much as students in our English-only population.

All bilingual students living in the Roderick, NeSmith, and Dodson attendance zones will go to Dodson Elementary.

All bilingual students living in the Ellis and McClendon attendance zones will go to McClendon Elementary.

If you have any questions about this, please reach out to our Director of Student Services, Ms. NaTosha Harris, at natosha.harris@communityisd.org.

As much as we would like to say that things won't change again, we are a fast growth district, and change is a part of managing that growth in a healthy way that maximizes the education potential of all of our students. If we continue to grow as projected, these current zones will hold for 1-3 years, but that depends on how fast the growth comes in and how soon we need to open elementary #6 (which will be built in Elevon).

As soon as the need is there for another campus, we'll make another shift.

We do not currently anticipate another change in the middle school zoning for at least a few years.

We will hold these lines as long as we can, but we also want to provide the best environment for all of our students and avoid overcrowding at our campuses.