School officials prepare for K-5 building transition

EASTPOINTE — As part of the Eastpointe Community Schools long-term facilities master plan, the district’s four elementary schools will undergo a transition.

Currently, Bellview and Pleasantview house grades 3-5 while Crescentwood and Forest Park house grades K-2. Next year, all four elementary schools will be K-5, and educators have started the transition for the 2025-2026 school year.

At the Jan. 27 Board of Education meeting, district Communications and Marketing Coordinator Caitlyn Kienitz provided an update on the transition. Her presentation included proposed attendance zones and maps to determine the school boundaries that will be set with the transition. The district said that the zones were created in an attempt to create equitable school sizes while also balancing transportation and safety needs.

“Caitlyn has been absolutely instrumental in spending countless hours playing with the boundary lines as well as current enrollment and School of Choice enrollment,” Superintendent Christina Gibson said. “There will not be an action this evening. This is going to be a board discussion and information for our community.”

The maps represented active families based on the district’s current enrollment in grades PK-4, which will be next year’s K-5 students. School officials used census data, including population density, percentage of owner-occupied homes and percentage of children younger than 18.

According to Kienitz, when the data in the presentation was pulled, the district had 837 resident and 134 nonresident students in grades PK-4. She also said that kindergarten estimates were based on the current Great Start Readiness Program enrollment, which is the free 4-year-old preschool program.

“Not all of them will stay, and based on our last two kindergarten classes, we should expect between 80 and 100 more kindergarten students districtwide than what is accounted for here,” Kienitz said.

At press time, families were to be notified of their zoned school on Feb 1. Families were scheduled to receive letters that included the upcoming timeline of dates and deadlines, and the process for requesting in-district transfers.

“We know that some families are going to want to stay at a school. They’ll have the avenue to do that. If that makes more sense for them, if that’s what they want to do, they will still have that option,”  Kienitz said.

“Right now we have many, many families who have two to four children split between two schools. We don’t know if they’re going to want to stay at the school where they’re zoned; if they’re going to want to stay at one of the schools their child attended previously,” Kienitz said.  “We want to give them that option, but we also want to give staffing an opportunity to staff classrooms properly so that we’re ready for the school year. We’ll also include in that the process for our current School of Choice families to request their preferred school placement. We will have them rank those.”

According to the presentation, families living in the zone moving from Forest Park to Bellview will receive additional communication to explain why they’re zoned to a school they may not have expected, and that they will receive transportation to safely cross Gratiot Avenue. Additionally, families of students receiving special education services in a self-contained classroom will receive separate communications, as building placement for these classrooms is not yet finalized.

Students in Monica Castelow’s fourth grade class at Pleasantview had several questions about the K-5 transition, which was made into a video and can be viewed on the district’s Facebook and Instagram pages, YouTube and at the district’s website, eastpointeschools.org.

For a survey for Eastpointe Community Schools families to share their thoughts and questions regarding the K-5 transition, visit my.thoughtexchange.com/scroll/799508844/welcome.