In the aftermath of its failed 2024 bond measure, Yuma District One may be changing attendance boundary lines to alleviate pressure from Desert Mesa Elementary and Castle Dome Middle School. Both schools have officially reached maximum enrollment capacity with 813 and 946 students respectively. Mary A. Otondo Elementary, located on the same street, is also nearing capacity.
During its regular May meeting, the District One governing board held a hearing and discussed the possibility of changing the attendance boundaries for those schools. The decision is pending a subsequent special meeting to be held later this month.
The proposed boundary changes would affect families living along the Highway 95 corridor between Avenue 3E and Araby Road, or 6 1/2 E, up to Levee Road. Specifically, this concerns the neighborhoods of College Acres, Sierra Pacific Mobile Home Park and El Prado Estates RV Park.
If the change is adopted, this would mean 32 new students for Roosevelt Elementary, 74 new students for O.C. Johnson Elementary and 72 new students for Fourth Avenue Junior High.
Because of their distance from the schools, all of the impacted children would be provided transportation. The district has calculated that these students' bus rides would take about 14 minutes.
Population Growth and Housing Trends
The need for such changes comes as the result of development trends in Yuma County. During the governing board’s regular May meeting, Superintendent James Sheldahl explained that population growth within the attendance boundaries is expected to continue.
“We’re seeing a lot of new growth and new subdivisions in this area and it’s putting pressure on the classrooms and class sizes and the size of the school,” he said. “Class sizes would be well in excess of 30. The board this last year approved our effort for staffing to try to reduce our class sizes at the elementary school level.
“… Mr. Sheppard [associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction] talked about the burden that the teachers have with the range of skill and ability levels in the classroom. That’s exacerbated when the classroom itself becomes overcrowded as well.”
Sheldahl noted the district has nearby schools with plenty of room “to welcome new students and maintain that smaller class size and personalized approach.”
Without changing the attendance boundaries, Desert Mesa and Castle Dome would be legally required to accept any new students who take up residence within the boundaries. The schools find some relief from Arizona open enrollment requirements since there's an exception allowing them to close it when they've hit capacity. But population growth and housing development are beyond the district's control.
Mary A. Otondo was also brought up in the discussion. Although it has yet to officially reach max capacity, it has functionally done so in terms of actual classroom space. Sheldahl noted that 19% of the district's students have disabilities, and Otondo specifically has several classrooms that are used for specialized Exceptional Student Services programs, which are limited to 10 students.
When asked about the capacity figures of the schools, including Otondo's, he clarified that the numbers can get a little "wonky" because of the way Arizona calculates capacity.
"The way the state figures their capacity," he said. "The way they figure that 850 is that since Desert Mesa – and Otondo falls into this as well – has indoor corridors, they count a percentage of the indoor corridors as instructional space, which would imply that we could have classrooms out in the hall."
Public School Funding (Without the 2024 Bond)
Although it wasn't directly mentioned at the introduction for the proposed changes, funding remains the crux of the matter. Without funds, facilities cannot be expanded nor can new ones be constructed. District One asked voters to approve a $77 million bond in November 2024 for facilities improvements across the board. The majority of these monies would've gone towards school security and interior revitalization.
While addressing comments from the public, governing board member Cori Rico connected the proposed boundary changes to the bond measure's failure to pass.
"The bond wasn't passed and those are the things that can bring money to the schools to help build infrastructure, to add classrooms, to be able to fix things, to be able to build capacity, but it didn't pass at the voting booth," she said. "And so now we have to get creative, and it's difficult."
Parent Concerns
May's meeting was busier than average, and by the time the board reached this topic on the agenda and permitted public comment, parents had already waited more than two hours to speak their minds. Despite the wait, the room was filled with interested community members.
The common message from parents? School choice is of utmost importance.
“We live in College Acres. We chose to live and raise our children in College Acres – which a lot of people don't even know what College Acres is," said Staci Ellis Dildine, a mother of five. "... It's a little jewel that's county, close to the city, that we have property and we have animals, and our children can go play in the street without getting worried about getting hit. But it was the schools that made us want to raise our children there, too.”
Ellis Dildine shared that three of her children have gone through Desert Mesa, Castle Dome and graduated from Gila Ridge High School. The fourth is currently in Gila Ridge, and the fifth is a sixth grader in Castle Dome.
"The only thing my sixth grader wanted to do was to be able to follow in his siblings' footsteps," she said.
Ellis Dildine also asked about holding developers accountable.
"I'd like some direction, too, on who to talk to about holding these developers accountable for having to put that in their plan," she said. "Add it to the price of the houses. I don't know what needs to be done so that our kids don't suffer – and that's hard for me to say, too, because my family's in construction. We own a construction company, and that benefits my family."
Nicole Troy, another mother from College Acres, echoed the sentiment.
"Dorothy Hall was built in, I think, 2018, 2019, and as you guys mentioned, that was donated land by the Hall brothers," she said. "Where are these other prominent developers? Elliott homes? They have these half a million dollar houses, and there's no infrastructure set aside for them to build new schools."
Troy also asked about the possibility of incentives or credits for developers to build new schools.
Sheldahl replied that he had no idea.
"I do know that in the state of Arizona, governments cannot levy impact fees on developers," he said. "In a lot of states, paid development comes in and the developer has to pay impact fees, which they generally pass on to the person who's buying the home, and those impact fees get put into an account to build schools and roads and hospitals and things like that.
"Arizona constitutionally cannot levy impact fees. They can only negotiate. So the city and the county, whatever the case may be for the subdivision, can negotiate and request, but they cannot, can't require that."
Other questions raised concerned sibling clauses that could grandfather students from these neighborhoods into Desert Mesa and Castle Dome, and whether the open enrollment students from outside the current boundaries could be the ones to be relocated to the other schools.
Outcome: To Be Determined
District One has yet to officially take action on the issue as the board members have deemed they need more information. In the interest of making a decision in a timely manner that would permit any affected parties to begin planning for the 2025 - 2026 school year, they'll be holding a special meeting this month to go over the new information and make a decision.
While the suggestion was made, board member Jeff Stoner indicated he would like to give priority to the students residing in the proposed area of change.
"I do feel like it's it's important that we take care of the people that have been there the longest," he said. "I think that we need to find out who the the numbers of the open enrollment kids that are in these schools are and compare that to the numbers that we're trying to remove out of the district or out of that area, and if those numbers match, I believe that those kids deserve to be there before the open enrollment kids do."
Board member Anthony Gier said he considers this a "common sense approach."
Superintendent Sheldahl also emphasized that the proposed changes are not long-term solutions and thanked the parents for taking time to comment.
"The speakers are right," he said. "This is not a permanent solution ... The district has work to do around capital planning and demographics and growth and new subdivisions and boundary lines. Those all have to come into play.
"What this is is a recommendation to, like I said, take some pressure off of two of our existing schools that have a lot of pressure on them right now. Otondo is not over capacity, but it's full ... Sunrise is at capacity. You know, the trend in Yuma is people are moving to the eastern portion of our school district ... and that's something that we on the receiving end of that trend need to try to do the best we can to create the best situation at each school for our students and our teachers and our families.
"And whenever you make a change, it's hard. It's hard to make the recommendation and it's hard to be the the family that's in the change zone. There's no question about it. I would not downplay that or sugar coat that at all. I have great respect for the folks that came and spoke tonight, and I know that you you speak for more than just yourself."
To view the meeting in full, click here.
Reporting for this article is supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation.
