Tulsa Public Schools looking at changing high school boundaries

The Tulsa School Board is working on a plan to re-draw the district's high school boundaries. <br><br>Members decided Monday night to spend the next two weeks getting answers to questions about the

Tuesday, April 6th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

The Tulsa School Board is working on a plan to re-draw the district's high school boundaries.

Members decided Monday night to spend the next two weeks getting answers to questions about the proposed changes. All Tulsa high schools have a specific attendance area except for Booker T Washington.

When Booker T was integrated in the 1970's the district carved up its attendance area and bused those students across town. Now, the district wants to give the students living near BTW, a home school closer to where they live.

The former BTW attendance area would be split between Central and The Tulsa School for Science and Technology, with TSST getting the bulk of the students.

School leaders say Central is near capacity, so the district wants to expand the Edison High School attendance area to capture a chunk of Central's current district. The proposed change to Edison's boundaries drew the most criticism. Edison parent Julie Rowland: "The issue I heard from Edison parents is overcrowding. We'd love to have everybody if we had room for everybody."

The Tulsa Education and Community Heritage group or TEACH also opposes the proposed changes. They renewed their push to make BTW a neighborhood school with a magnet component.