Woodland Park School District merging Junior High and Highschool for 2024-2025 school year
WOODLAND PARK, Colo. (KRDO) - According to a press release sent out this week, the Woodland Park School District will merge 7th and 8th-grade students with the high school next school year.
The district says it's because the enrollment at Merit Charter Academy has overgrown its section of space at the middle school, essentially forcing them out.
"At this point, we can't accommodate all of the students for both. So we have to make a choice and the choice is easily made simply because of the the student counts," Woodland Park School District Superintendent Ken Witt said.
This decision was made in the face of overwhelming parental disapproval. In a survey conducted in January of 2023, 88% of parents said they didn't want a merger like this to occur.
Shannon Vollaro, a Woodland Park parent, expressed many concerns with the merger.
Her primary concern, however, is over the idea of her 7th-grade child having the opportunity to interact with and mingle with 12th-grade students, something she doubts he is ready for in terms of maturity.
"When I got that email, I was a little shocked because I have a seventh grader. So this will be affecting him. He will be moving into the high school building, and he's a little nervous about it, and rightfully so," Vollaro said.
In response to that concern, Witt detailed that he and his administrative staff are working on planning the merger so that middle and high school students won't mix -- much.
"They're not overlapping as much as possible," Witt said. "They will have separate locations so that they're not actually intermingling -- except for the opportunities that we'll be able to offer some additional extracurricular opportunities and course opportunities."
Those extracurriculars, on a case-by-case basis, will be offered to the middle school students and allow some socialization. He did say that all passing periods, lunch periods, and other common times among students will be separate, however.
While the announcement was made Friday, Witt said that they are still working out specifics like library policies, athletics, and other academic details. He said they would inform parents when they have made more decisions in the coming weeks.
