Original Recomended Scenario for Medford School District Board of Directors 

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The Attendance Zoning Committee recommended this scenario to the Medford School District Board of Directors on May 5, 2022. Please view the scenario below. Based on feedback from the public, the recommendation was amended.  This is the current recommendation for Board consideration. There will be another opportunity for public feedback at a Medford School Board meeting at 5:30 pm on June 2, 2022 at Logos Public Charter School. That is also when the Board is expected to make its final decision. 

Please scroll down for details about this recommendation.  

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Greetings, Medford School District Staff and Families!

Thank you to everyone who took the time to give feedback regarding new middle school attendance zones! As you know, Oakdale Middle School will open in August 2023, at which time all sixth graders (except for Ruch K-8 and MOA K-12) will attend middle schools, freeing up space at our elementary schools. 

In order to understand the reasoning behind the recommendation, it’s important to understand how we got to this point.  Please read below for details on the recommendation, in addition to how public input informed the process. We read and considered every single comment that came our way and included those thoughts in our recommendation! 

There will be another opportunity for public feedback at a Medford School Board Hearing at 5:30 pm on May 19 at North Medford High School. The Board decision is expected on June 2. 

We know that attendance boundary transitions can be challenging, and that this will be a big change for many of our families. We are committed to make the transition as smooth as possible, and we'll be communicating more information as next year nears. 

Thank you to our amazing community members, parents, and staff who volunteered their time and put deep thought into this process with their hearts centered on what’s best for ALL MSD students. 

Gratefully, 

Bret Champion

Superintendent 

History:

• Medford School District’s community led Facilities Optimization Committee recommended in 2019 to utilize all available space in the district and convert the facility at Oakdale to a middle school, creating three traditional middle schools in Medford School District, delaying the need to go to taxpayers for additional funds. 
• The Attendance Zoning Committee convened in 2019, composed of staff, families, community members. 
• Work disrupted due to COVID. 
• The committee reconvened in January 2021 with a new committee, some members of the former committee stuck with us. 

Important Note:

• All three middle schools are within two miles of each other:
  • Hedrick to McLoughlin = 1.4 miles / 5 minutes drive time
  • McLoughlin to Oakdale = 0.8 miles / 3 minutes drive time 
  • Oakdale to Hedrick = 2.0 miles / 7 minutes drive time 

Developing a Recommendation:

• The AZ Committee established the following four priorities/objectives.
  • Capacity 
  • Demographics
  • Continuity of Feeder Patterns 
  • Community Voice
• With those priorities in mind, they developed four different scenarios for public feedback. 
  • B: Focused primarily on continuity of feeder patterns and balancing demographics
  • C: Focused primarily on least disruption possible to current state
  • T1: Focused primarily on balancing demographics
  • T2: Focused primarily on proximity from school to home and keeping neighborhoods at the same schools
• Evening Gallery Walks were held to engage the public in the process at four locations, two events were held in Spanish.  The scenarios were also shared online. 150 participants attended the Gallery Walks and there were 501 submissions to the online feedback form.
• Key Themes from the community feedback included:
  • Close proximity from home to school
  • Keeping cohorts together
  • Balancing demographics
  • School specific requests
• Key themes from community feedback aligned with priorities of the committee, which were affirmed by educators to become recommendation objectives, as follows:
  • Demographics: Keep student demographic groups (ex. Students experiencing poverty/English Language Learners) within 20 percentage points of each other between schools.
  • Inverse Relationship: Applies mostly to wide gaps in capacity and/or demographics (If a school has higher poverty it should have a lower student population).
  • Feeder Patterns - Keeping cohorts together to the maximum extent possible throughout their K-12 experience.
  • Capacity - Keep schools within 300 students of each other AND the minimum student population “floor” should be 780, with the maximum “ceiling” of 1,050. (These numbers are important for physical capacity and to create ideal middle school teams.)  
  • Contiguous - Neighborhoods that are next to each other should go to the same schools, to the maximum extent possible.
• The first night in which the committee convened to determine a recommendation, they used community feedback and an objective crosswalk to determine the focus and to refine existing scenarios. These led the committee to primarily focus on positive attributes of Scenarios B and T2.  Committee members worked with the tools provided in the meeting in order to bring back refined scenarios the second night. 
• The second night, the committee ranked each scenario in terms of how closely it met the five objectives (3 = fully meets, 2 = mostly meets, 1 = does not meet)
• The committee analyzed all scenarios, starting with B & T2, as well as several variations: K1, C1, B2T2, C1T. 
• After much conversation, B2T2 emerged as the only scenario that fully or partially met all five objectives.   

About Attendance Zone Recommendation

• The committee started with Scenario B because it had the most balanced demographics, and altered it to make it more contiguous, which was important to many families. 
• They also heard feedback from Wilson families who walk to Hedrick, so we split Wilson at Crater Lake Avenue (CLA) (east of CLA goes to Hedrick, west of CLA goes to Oakdale). 
• In order to keep cohorts together to the greatest extent possible, we recommend adjusting the high school boundary so all of Jackson goes to South, all of Oak Grove goes to South, and all of Roosevelt goes to North. 
• We heard from many Hoover parents that they did not want to adjust their high school boundaries, so Hoover would remain split on the North, South boundary.  
   

 

• Pluses of the Recommendation: 
  • The total number of students at each school will be very similar.
  • The projected demographics are much more balanced than our current state.
    • Current state poverty: 43% Hedrick to 72% Mcloughlin 
  • Nearly all elementary student cohorts will stay together throughout their K-12 experience, except for Wilson students within walking distance of Hedrick and Hoover students who separate from middle school to high school.
  • Most elementary schools sharing common borders will attend the same middle school. 
  • 4 of the 5 schools that will feed into McLoughlin already feed into McLoughlin.
  • 5 of 5 schools that will feed into Hedrick already feed into Hedrick.
  • Only 5 feeder schools will change to a different middle school in the fall of 2023, including the 4 schools that will feed the new middle school.
  • All three middle schools are outstanding and their leaders are excited to build community. 
  • The committee is recommending an adjustment to the high school boundary line so that Oak Grove, Jackson and Roosevelt students can remain together throughout their K-12 experience. 

• Deltas:
  • Most Wilson students will transition to McLoughlin from Hedrick, except a small percentage of students residing east of Crater Lake Avenue who are within walking distance of Hedrick.
  • The committee is recommending an adjustment to the high school attendance boundary line. In response to feedback from Hoover families, the high school line boundary will remain the same for Hoover. This means students who live in North Medford High School attendance boundary will be the only students from Oakdale to feed into NMHS.

Additional Recommendations

High School Boundary Changes

• All Roosevelt student go to North Medford High School
• All Jackson students go to South Medford High School
• All Oak Grove students go South Medford High School

Future Consideration

• Revisit Kindergarten through 12th grade boundaries in four to five years

Transfers & Grandfathering 

The AZ Committee will not make a decision on students being allowed to “grandfather” at their current campus.  A “grandfathering” decision will be made by the district after attendance zones are adopted for the middle schools.  The decision will be based on the demography numbers, and student capacities of the existing buildings, examined in tiers.  Students will be allowed to stay in their previously zoned school until that current school reaches 90% capacity of the building, using the following tiers:  

• Tier 1:  Students who are in seventh grade in the 2022-2023 school year; if there is room after that, 
• Tier 2:  Siblings of students attending the school in the 2022-2023 school year; if there is room after that,
• Tier 3:  Students who are in sixth grade in the 2022-2023 school year. 

The district will also consider allowing students within walking distance of the middle school they currently attend to be grandfathered, pending capacity at the receiving school.