Downtown Lakewood is defined by the four quadrants created by the intersection of Wadsworth and Alameda Avenues. What you might not know is that the neighborhoods on the west side of Wadsworth and the neighborhoods on the east side (including Belmar) are in different school enrollment zones. Both sides are part of the Jefferson County School system, but the neighborhoods on the west side of Wadsworth feed into Lakewood High School, an award winning school with a noted International Baccalaureate program. Neighborhoods on the east side feed into Alameda High School, which has seen shrinking enrollments as a growing number of local parents choice enroll their students into other schools, including Lakewood High. At the same time, enrollment in Alameda's feeder elementary schools has been growing, with the award winning Stein Elementary now at something around 170% of capacity.
Just a few weeks ago the school district floated a proposal to turn Alameda into a 7th-12th grade International Baccalaureate school (Alameda High currently has a small but growing International Baccalaureate program, started to compete with the program at Lakewood).
The proposal would then be to close O'Connell Middle School (Alameda High School's only middle level feeder) and turn it into a new elementary school in order to relieve overcrowding a Stein.
Tonight's meeting is from 6-8 pm. I'll try and attend and report back.
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