Looking to maximize available space and improve efficiency in the district, officials with Christian County Public Schools took time with the Hopkinsville Rotary Club Tuesday, in order to explain some immediate upcoming changes for Summer 2024.
Among the largest refits, according to CCPS District Technology Director Dr. Jason Wilson, include:
— Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary is becoming Hopkinsville Middle;
— Indian Hills Elementary is becoming the MLK Jr. Early Learning Academy, with Inspire daycare and pre-school;
— And Hopkinsville Middle is becoming Indian Hills Elementary.
This move, Wilson noted, allows for increased enrollment at all pre-high schools, while creating the needed room to re-insert the sixth-grade class back into the middle school.
Wilson reminded the organization that CCPS board members decided more than a decade ago to pull sixth graders out of the middle school in order to create space — and that this decision needed to be reversed.
Through aerial maps, Wilson also showed that Christian County Middle School and MLK Jr. Elementary virtually have the same building footprint — save an extra back hallway at CCMS. Both of these buildings, he added, hold close to 900 students, and yet MLK currently has 500, and CCMS has 650.
With MLK no longer a school, zones and redistricting will shift students to Crofton, Pembroke, Freedom and Indian Hills — four schools, Wilson said, that are either the district’s finest, or fastest improving.
The most changed boundary in this new format: the Millbrooke/Indian Hills line.
Mathematically, Wilson said this rotation gets every school underneath capacity levels “comfortably,” and would give enough cushion to absorb an enrollment boost of 500 or more students — while still having room in said schools.
Projected 2024-25 enrollment for Freedom is 559, 411 for Crofton, 658 for Indian Hills, 564 for Millbrooke, 607 for Pembroke, 348 for Sinking Fork, 607 for South Christian, 854 for CCMS, 816 for HMS, 1,157 for CCHS and 1,022 for HHS.
On February 5, a letter will go out to elementary, middle and high school parents detailing not only these changes — but also with an online link where parents can insert their home addresses to see where the redistricting impacts their neighborhood.
