|
October 1, 2007
Westwood Charter is experiencing an influx of students and has
been forced to ask several children to leave the school.
In the past, children who had lived in the area and
attended Westwood Charter had been allowed to stay once they
moved outside the area.
This is no longer the case.
The grades most severely impacted are Kindergarten
and 3rd grade.
The overcrowding was so severe that the special education
students were forced to relocate to Overland Elementary to
make room for new kindergarten and 3rd grade
classes. The
school’s administrators actually had to go door to door to
verify residency for many students.
If the trend continues, the school’s leaders are concerned
that they will not be able to guarantee attendance at
Westwood Charter for students who live in the area.
The root of the problem is simple:
Increasing development and increasing density.
When single-family homes are torn down and large
multi-family dwellings are built, demand for school seats
exceeds supply.
The same is true for large developments that have recently
been approved and also for the Bellwood Project which would
replace 115 bachelor apartments with 158 multi-bedroom
condos.
The strain on the infrastructure from uncontrolled
development can be felt in many ways.
This includes the ever-increasing traffic we endure
every day.
Many of the impacts are hard to quantify until residents
face a shortage of some key resource – like a seat for their
child at their local elementary school.
This is a lesson many families learned the hard way
this school year.
|