Clover is about to set new high school attendance lines. But key decisions remain
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- Clover School District prepares to finalize new attendance boundaries by Sept. 22
- New zoning affects three new schools and anticipates future residential growth
- Board weighs community feedback on feeder patterns, sibling rules and capacity
Clover School District officials have a difficult decision to make next week, one that will likely impact generations of students and their families. They’ve penciled in new attendance lines, but now it’s time to set them.
The district has to create new attendance boundaries for all three school levels ahead of next summer’s opening of Lake Wylie High School, Roosevelt Middle School and Liberty Hill Elementary School.
The district held the last of three community forums Tuesday night. The school board held a special called meeting Monday to update the boundary process.
Attendance lines can be contentious and divisive issues in school districts, Superintendent Sheila Quinn said at Monday’s meeting. Parents in the Clover district, she said, haven’t let that happen.
“They have been extremely respectful and understanding that this process is hard,” Quinn said, “and understanding that we’re trying to do the very best we can for the district.”
Still, community feedback brought up several areas the board needs to consider when it meets for a final decision on Sept. 22. The board also has to decide on issues like school sport participation, siblings and neighborhood preferences to set final attendance lines.
The district aims for fairness in where it assigns current students, but also has to plan for the more than 2,300 housing units approved within the district that haven’t been built, said district COO Mark Hopkins.
“We’re not only talking about our current students,” he said. “We’ve got to be able to handle the growth that’s coming our way.”
Attendance line proposals for Clover school district
The Clover district is wider than it is tall, stretching from Clover on the west to Lake Wylie on the east. Based on the location of Clover and Lake Wylie high schools, the district’s first division of high school boundaries was always likely to split an eastern and western portion.
The district released proposed lines on Aug. 25.
Homes east of Riddle Mill Road to the north and S.C. 49 south of the Five Points intersection would be zoned for Lake Wylie High. Homes west of those points would go to Clover High. All seniors will stay at Clover High next year to finish school there.
Middle schools would go from a similar east-west split to a three-district setup. An eighth elementary school would shift lines across the district to balance student enrollment with varying school capacities.
As of mid-August, the district had 4,109 elementary, 2,128 middle and 2,801 high school students.
The proposed lines would put 1,508 of those students at Lake Wylie High and 1,313 students at Clover High if they attended during the 2027-28 school year, the first year both schools will have all four classes.
Community requests attendance line changes
The school district is open to line changes from its initial plan, but they’ll have a high bar to clear. Even small changes can impact multiple schools and neighborhoods.
“People are making a lot of great points, but there’s so many moving parts here,” said school board member Matt Burris. “This is not just about where your child goes to school next year.”
District staff recommended a change to the draft lines impacting 55 students in the Clarendon Estates neighborhood. It’s at the end of Oakridge Road at the North Carolina state line.
The draft lines split the neighborhood and sent students to Griggs Road Elementary, Roosevelt Middle and Clover High. The recommendation would shift them to Oakridge Elementary, Oakridge Middle and Lake Wylie High.
Homes on the Lake Wylie Road peninsula generated community requests for changes, too. They would go to Bethel Elementary and Roosevelt Middle in the draft, but then to Lake Wylie High.
Most of the Roosevelt attendance area would move up to Clover High. Students on the Lake Wylie Road peninsula currently attend Crowders Creek Elementary and Oakridge Middle.
Changes to the proposal could create capacity issues at the elementary or middle school levels, since the peninsula has 228 students.
“This group of students makes an impact,” Hopkins said.
The district got feedback from the Montgomery Road area in Lake Wylie, where there are 114 students.
There are options to keep younger students at Oakridge Elementary or move them to Crowders Creek Elementary. The district also is looking at the Mountainview Road are near S.C. 49, where there are only seven students now. But future growth could bring higher student counts to whichever high school gets the area.
The Lake Wylie Road and Montgomery Road questions in particular could be a matter of timing. If the district opts to keep students where they are, those decisions may only last a few years.
“When the growth comes in, it’s very likely that this board or a future board may have to consider a (school attendance line) change at that time as well,” Hopkins said.
In other areas, zoning line changes aren’t the issue. It’s the feeder system.
The district plans to have entire elementary schools move up the same middle schools, and middle schools to high schools. Community feedback from the Ole Cambridge, U.S. 321 North/Barrett Road, Penley Place, Clover Meadows, Timerlake and South Paraham Road to break those feeder rules would impact 442 students.
Clover school board to decide attendance lines
The board also has decisions to make on exceptions.
High school seniors will stay at Clover, but what about their high school siblings? There have been requests to grandfather in other grades, too, by letting fifth or eighth graders stay and finish at their elementary or middle schools.
“If I have a fifth grader, I might also have a first and a second (grader), or a kindergartner,” Quinn said. “It has ripple effects.”
There’s been discussion on letting varsity athletes remain at Clover High, but the district might then have to extend similar exceptions for all clubs and organizations. That move could lead to an open enrollment setup where students choose schools, something the Clover district doesn’t have and hasn’t otherwise advocated.
As the district looks to finalize its boundaries and set out on a new era as a two high school district, key questions remain.
But parents and administrators have gone about looking for answers the right way, Quinn said. It’s a good problem to have, she told parents at the final forum Tuesday night, when parents are passionate about wanting to stay at their schools but also open to new ones.
“I know how emotional it can be,” Quinn said. “I’ve been in other districts where it has been yelling and screaming and just lots of nashing of teeth. And we have not had that.”
