Cape district sets new elementary school enrollment zones

Following discussions that began in September, the Cape school board voted unanimously Dec. 14 to create new elementary school attendance zones aimed at alleviating crowding at Love Creek Elementary.

More people are moving to the region and want their children to attend Cape schools, said Superintendent Bob Fulton, noting that growth in the Route 9/Route 24 corridor has surpassed that of other areas in the district. 

In 2020, he said, the board voted to alleviate crowding at Love Creek for the 2021-22 school year by shifting some students to Rehoboth and Milton schools, decreasing Love Creek by more than 100 students.

Now, with 706 students including Sussex Consortium pupils, Love Creek has about the same number of students as it did before that change, Fulton said, noting it would be optimal to relocate about 150 students from Love Creek, but only 80 will move under the proposed plan.

Fulton said he considered three priorities, the first of which is residency. He said school officials are requesting documentation from families to determine residency.

Secondly, he said, school choice was considered. Delaware regulations require the district to permit school choice if space allows, he said, which is no longer the case at Love Creek.

“It’s difficult for me to ask somebody who currently lives in the Love Creek attendance zone to move to a different school when we have students who we know don’t live there, or who live outside the district,” he said.

At Love Creek, 38 choice students are connected to a district staff member and 25 are not, he said. District policy allows for staff to choice their children into district schools, he said.

The 25 students not connected to a staff member will have two options: they can choose to attend the school in their own attendance zone, or if they wish to stay in the Cape district, they can choose to attend H.O. Brittingham Elementary, which has the lowest number of students of all elementaries.

The third priority is changing the attendance zones, he said. Rehoboth and Lewes elementary zones are not growing as quickly because there is no space to build large developments, he said, so those schools were chosen for the new zones to feed into.

The proposed plan has not changed since the November meeting, Fulton said. Thirty-two students living in zones comprising the Reserves at Lewes Landing, Coastal Club and the Jimtown area will move from Love Creek to Lewes Elementary; and 21 students who live in areas comprising the Retreat at Love Creek, Beachwoods and Welches Pond will move to Rehoboth Elementary.

Fulton said he met with families several times to get their thoughts. He said their top concerns are the difficulty for students being in a school with unfamiliar faces, logistical issues and distance from home, and that some students who move to a new elementary school will then transition to middle school without a majority of their classmates.

One recommendation involved moving some areas of the Cape district to the Indian River School District, he said, which the district obviously can’t do and doesn’t want to do.

“There are some that had ideas about who should leave,” he said, noting most sentiments reflected that it should be someone else’s child, and not theirs, who moves. Someone suggested that all the kids new to a school should move, he said.

“That doesn’t work for a lot of reasons,” he said. “It may work for that particular family, but for logistics, transportation and a lot of reasons, that’s not going to work.”

Fulton said he understands that people want their children to remain in their schools.

“But it can’t be everybody else except my child,” he said.

Regarding residency, he said, the district has received several tips at tinyurl.com/yv7v3n8v, a site where anyone with concerns about students attending Cape schools who are not residing in the district can anonymously report. Several families and their situations are being investigated, he said. 

Additionally, he said, before the end of the year, a residency audit of all Love Creek students in kindergarten through fourth grade will be conducted, with families required to submit updated proofs of residency. Owning a home in the Cape district doesn’t count as residency, he said; the child has to reside in the home.

“Believe it or not, people will try anything to attend school where they want their child to attend school, and I get it,” he said. “But, it doesn’t mean we have to allow it.”

During public comment, Mark Hudson said he lives in Retreat at Love Creek and has children at Love Creek Elementary. Hudson said he wanted to make clear he is not a parent who thinks it should be someone else’s kid and not his, but he disagrees with the proposal because it is not in the best interest of the kids in the community that will move.

Hudson outlined how students living in other communities could be moved to Milton instead, which he said would reduce attendance at Love Creek by the same number. When the timer buzzed, noting his allotted three minutes were over, Hudson said Fulton was allowed to present a lengthy explanation, and that he wished to continue his. Board President Alison Myers allowed the exemption.

Hudson said his plan would not split developments and he’s disappointed the middle school boundaries were decided first. He asked the board to vote against the plan and not single out 21 kids who will move from Love Creek to Rehoboth Elementary and then move again for middle school.

In response, Fulton said he received Hudson’s email and, while he agreed with some points, he decided Hudson’s plan was not the best for the majority of students involved.

“What you’re saying is other communities should go to Milton instead of my child going to Rehoboth,” Fulton said.

Noting Hudson had used the meeting’s entire public comment time allotment, Myers asked if any other parents wished to speak. One parent asked about how many choice students at Love Creek were children of teachers versus non-teachers, and Myers said choice is open to full-time, permanent district employees.

“We don’t say teacher staff versus support staff,” Myers said. 

The new attendance zones will be effective for the 2024-25 school year. Go to tinyurl.com/yeyuvaek for more information.