Lexington 1 sets attendance lines for new elementary school
Hundreds of students will be headed to a brand new school next year, as the Lexington 1 school board sets new attendance lines for a new elementary school.
South Lake Elementary School is slated to open in the fall of 2024. The new school on South Lake Drive will pull 466 students from the current Carolina Springs and Saxe Gotha Elementary School attendance areas. Currently, 755 students attend Carolina Springs Elementary School and 602 attend Saxe Gotha, the school board was told.
Once South Lake opens next year, attendance at Carolina Springs is expected to drop to 458 and at Saxe Gotha to 453.
The proposal that received school board approval Dec. 12 will separate areas south of Platt Springs Road from the Saxe Gotha attendance area, with the line running west from Ramblin Road until it curves around White Knoll High School. From there, the line will then split from the Carolina Springs area along Cape Jasmine Way and the waterway running from Congaree Creek to Durham Pond.
“We strive to minimize division within subdivisions when at all possible,” the district’s interim Chief Operations Officer Clark Cooper said, by following major roads and natural boundaries and by factoring in transportation patterns.
Nevertheless, the new lines will run through the Lexington Hills and Villages at White Knoll neighborhoods, Cooper said. The proposed lines will also split the Bluefield and Bluefield West neighborhoods where Bluefield Road crosses over the creek branch.
Rising fifth graders who live in the new South Lake attendance zone will be able to complete their elementary education at their current school, Cooper said. Their younger siblings will also have the option to stay at either Carolina Springs or Saxe Gotha so parents don’t have to split up their children on school days.
While other students will have some limited school choice options as the district tries to keep the three schools balanced, board members said the new school will meet a need in a growing part of the county. During the same meeting, the board reviewed plans for underperforming schools, according to the latest statewide school report cards, at a time when outside funding sources are coming up short.
“I’m glad you balanced the schools because we just heard that (pandemic-era) ESSER funds are running out, the state’s funding model doesn’t fund at our per teacher-pupil ratio, so the only way we’re going to execute on closing the learning gap is to balance some of these schools,” said board member Brent Powell.
