PCS rezoning students to Pelham Oaks with 11 new classrooms

Published 10:15 am Thursday, January 28, 2021

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By NATHAN HOWELL | Special to the Reporter

PELHAM — About 60-70 students at Pelham Ridge Elementary School will be rezoned for Pelham Oaks under a recently passed rezoning plan.

To address capacity issues, the school system is adding 11 new classrooms at Pelham Oaks to help ensure all students are able to learn in a classroom without the school having to bring in trailers.

“We have grown 12 percent since we began as a system. Growth is a good problem to have, but our building capacity is getting close to maxing out,” PCS Superintendent Dr. Scott Coefield said. “We are adding 11 classrooms at Pelham Oaks for next year, which also meant we needed to rezone and ship some kids from Pelham Ridge to Pelham Oaks.”

The students who will be rezoned primarily come from the Brookshire, Ivy Brook and King Valley neighborhoods.

With this move, each facility will be right around 90 percent capacity.

Coefield said the BOE had planned ahead for this move so students would not have to take instruction in portable units, which is often the case for rapidly expanding areas.

“In those cases, sometimes you have a small room designed for storage or a teachers’ lounge being used for classrooms,” Coefield said. “These new classrooms will ensure everyone is in a room without having to put trailers in use.”

Coefield said the BOE has talked with parents to try and alleviate some of the concerns they might have going forward.

“We planned ahead so that the construction was able to move forward next year,” Coefield said. “A lot of planning went into this, and we are very pleased with it.”