2021 Attendance Zone Committee

Students who are grandfathered for their fifth-grade year next year will begin following the attendance zone boundaries for middle school based on their address for their sixth-grade year (2022-2023). All students in the district will follow the attendance zone boundaries that are set by the Attendance Zone Committee for the 2022-2023 school year.

Is there a chance any of these neighborhoods become their own school district? Or any change of rezoning to exclude current AISD addresses and rezone to a different school district?

School district boundaries in most cases were drawn several decades ago. Moving a certain area (like a neighborhood or subdivision) from one school district to another is a complicated legal process that rarely happens in the state of Texas. The process involves a petition and approval by the board of trustees of each involved school district. There are many other stipulations for that to happen, and that is outlined in Section 13.051 of the Texas Education Code. Aledo ISD does not anticipate any changes to the district’s external boundaries.

This option was considered  along with several others and is not feasible from a capacity perspective. AMS would continue to be over capacity and MMS would open at roughly half its capacity. The committee determined that operating a brand new school so far under capacity when the other MS is over capacity does not create an optimal learning environment or represent the best use of taxpayer dollars.

Yes. Even with the current proposed rezoning, McCall will be one of the first elementary campuses to experience capacity challenges in the next three years. Keeping these households north of I20 at McCall creates an unsustainable situation with regard to capacity.

Generating the greatest capacity for the longest time period possible was one of the determining factors used by the committee, as that is something that we have been charged to do by the AISD Board of Trustees. In general, the significant current and projected growth of housing subdivisions in the vicinity of Walsh Elementary (including and particularly Morningstar and Walsh) make it impossible to keep the current Walsh Elementary attendance zone intact. Please note that Morningstar has not been singled out from attending Walsh Elementary. All homes north of I-20 and west of Farmer Road/3325 are included in the proposed rezoning from Walsh Elementary to McCall Elementary. We also thought it was important to keep neighborhoods together rather than divide a neighborhood.

Even with certain neighborhoods, including Morningstar, being rezoned to McCall, the significant growth in the Walsh development will create capacity challenges at Walsh Elementary in the future. In fact, the expected rapid housing growth in the school district north of I-20 is expected to challenge the capacities of the elementaries in the north rather quickly.  

The expected enrollment versus capacity numbers at Walsh Elementary are significant. First, we need to explain that the maximum capacity of a school is having every seat filled in every designated teaching space for every period of the school day. Functional capacity takes into consideration schedule flexibility, average designed student-to-teacher ratio, and desired use of spaces. While the staff at Walsh Elementary has done an incredible job in managing the current overcrowding of the campus, it is not a situation that can be sustained, and the overcrowding will get worse.

The maximum capacity at Walsh is 675 students, and the functional capacity at Walsh is 607 students. As of this week, there are 716 students enrolled at Walsh. With the initial proposed elementary zoning map that would move some neighborhoods to McCall that was published last week, Walsh would go above both functional and maximum capacity during the 2023-2024 school year.

The student body in Aledo ISD is growing rapidly, and the projections by the district’s outside professional demographers indicate an even faster rate of growth in the future. Due to this rapid growth, the Aledo ISD administration has discussed with our committee that the district is pursuing land for future schools (including north of I-20) and is starting to plan for a future bond election (which is required before the district will be able to build new schools). If you would like to review the most recent student growth projections for Aledo ISD, click here for the latest Aledo ISD Demographic Update.

If the Morningstar neighborhood were to stay at Walsh, next year’s enrollment is projected to be 846 students (125% of maximum capacity). If all of the neighborhoods north of I-20 that are currently in the Walsh attendance zone were to stay at Walsh, next year’s enrollment is projected to be 974 (144% of maximum capacity). The committee believes that neither of these scenarios is acceptable due to the significant overcrowding of the campus. And the Walsh population would continue to grow from there.

The committee extensively studied having exact feeder patterns - sending three elementary schools to Aledo Middle School and three to the new McAnally Middle School - but ultimately decided it was not feasible because of the distance some families would have to travel to their middle school. The AZC also wanted to try to keep the capacity as close as possible at each campus for many years to come. Finally, knowing that, in a fast-growth district, more elementary schools will be built before a new middle school is built, the AZC tried to draw middle school boundaries that might prevent families from having to move middle schools in the future.

Elementary No. 6 (Annetta Elementary) will open in August of 2021, and all other campuses - Middle School No. 2 (McAnally Middle School), expanded and renovated Aledo Middle School as well as McAnally Intermediate (Vandagriff Elementary) and the renovated Vandagriff Elementary (Aledo ISD Early Childhood Academy) - will open in August of 2022.

As new homes are built in the district and new students move into the district, it becomes necessary to create new capacity for students to learn. New capacity in the district in the form of new and expanded campuses requires a redistribution of students so that the capacity is used more efficiently and so that capacity is adequate to serve the growing student population. Aledo ISD is a fast-growth district, and is projected to be growing at an even more rapid pace as new residential developments are constructed. As we continue to grow, attendance rezoning will occur in the coming years. Click here for the latest demographic projections for the district.

The last time the district drew new attendance zone boundaries was for the 2017-2018 school year when Walsh Elementary opened. With 2017-2018 kindergarteners being in third grade now and with the ability for 2021-2022 fifth graders to grandfather to their current school, the only individual students whose attendance zone boundaries could be changing for a second time during their time in elementary school are incoming fifth graders (current fourth graders). The parents of an incoming fifth graders may choose to “grandfather” to stay on their current campus. See FAQ above for grandfathering guidelines.

The new schools will be staffed with a combination of current Aledo ISD staff and new staff hired from outside the district. Because the district is fast-growth, and due to normal attrition, the district hires new staff at all of its campuses every school year.

Yes, all of our campuses use the same technology, have equally amazing teachers and staff, and follow the same curriculum. In terms of the renovated Aledo Middle School and the new McAnally Middle School, equity among campuses has been a top priority for the district and architects. Both middle school campuses will have the same fine arts, athletics and electives for students.

Specific class sizes will depend on the student population at each campus, but elementary schools will follow the 22:1 student:teacher ratio for kindergarten through fourth grades as is required by the state of Texas unless a waiver is requested. Because the district is fast-growth, class sizes change throughout the school year as new students move into the district and others move out. Opening a sixth elementary school and drawing new attendance zone boundaries will help with the overall student population overcrowding we are experiencing at our campuses.

The Attendance Zone Committee will take Board and community feedback given via the Community Feedback Survey and emails sent to the committee and make adjustments or changes, as needed. Once the AZC comes to a consensus on elementary attendance zones and middle school attendance zones, they will present it to the Board of Trustees for an official vote and approval.

Yes, all community feedback given - via the survey and the dedicated Attendance Zone Committee email - is being shared with the Attendance Zone Committee members to study and review before they meet to discuss potential updates to the proposed maps and then come to consensus before presenting their final recommendation to the Board of Trustees.