Board of Education to seek boundary change

The district will host two community meetings at Bel Aire City Hall to reach out to the residents of Bel Aire and northeast Wichita to answer questions and involve them in discussions about the future of the district in their community.          Wednesday, Oct. 10 –       7:30 p.m.        Tuesday, Oct. 23 –       6:30 p.m.

The Board of Education will submit a formal request for proposed boundary changes involving the community of Bel Aire and the Circle School district. Bel Aire is currently split between the Wichita Public Schools and the Circle school district. On Sept. 18, the Bel Aire City Council passed a resolution to create a one-district community, with Wichita Public Schools serving that community.

The proposed boundary changes approved by the Wichita Board on Sept. 24 include the entire community of Bel Aire. In addition, the district’s request will include Jabara Airport to the south and along K-254 to the north. The district would like to include Jabara Airport because of a possible opportunity to become part of Sedgwick County’s Technical Education and Training Authority’s master plan. The proposed expansion to the north is in anticipation of future growth of the Bel Aire community.

“This is designed to allow Circle to keep their tax base along Webb Road and along Greenwich. We don’t want to do anything to harm them financially,” said Martin Libhart, Chief Operations Officer.

In addition, the Board will submit a formal request for a Memorandum of Understanding between the two districts permitting any current students and their siblings from one district who attend a school in the other district to continue should they desire to do so. 

The BOE will now submit a formal request to the Circle school district about the proposed boundary changes. If the request is denied, the district will file its request with the Kansas State Department of Education, which will assign a mediator to work with the districts.

September 25, 2007