BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — The Kern High School District will be holding three public forums to discuss boundary changes caused by the opening of Del Oro High School.
The plan is to open Del Oro High School by the fall of 2022 at the corner of Panama Lane and Cottonwood Rd. But with it comes growing pains for surrounding schools. According to the Kern High School District potential schools affected by the boundary changes include Arvin, Bakersfield, East, North, and West.
A group of Bakersfield High School parents is putting signs on their front lawns to protest a potential change to school boundaries within KHSD. BHS parent, Joe Nahama says he’s seen firsthand how boundary changes can impact families, when his brother had to go to Foothill instead of their family school, Highland in Bakersfield.
“Right now, after a pandemic, after we finally got the kids back to school, we don’t want to change the boundaries. We’d like to continue to go to our family high school,” said Nahama. “It was not enjoyable in our family, whether to go, what to do, and we bought the house to be in Highland, and everything was switched,” said Nahama.
Decades later, Nahama currently has a freshman and a senior at BHS plus a sixth-grader. He does not want them to go through the same thing.
The Kern High School District says they have a citizens committee to discuss potential boundary changes within the district and that these changes have not been finalized. The committee has been working since April to come up with new boundaries which are expected to go into effect in August 2022.
Here’s the map that shows the current district boundaries:
But 23ABC obtained potential boundary map changes which would affect several neighborhoods and schools, including BHS:
The public forums will allow the community to view the three proposed boundary maps and provide input. The same information will be covered at each forum:
June 15, 2021
- West High School, 1200 New Stine Road
- 7:00 - 9:00 pm
June 22, 2021
- Foothill High School, 501 Park Drive
- 7:00 - 9:00 pm
June 29, 2021
- Golden Valley High School, 800 Hosking Road
- 7:00 - 9:00 pm
All public comments need to be submitted to boundaryquestions@kernhigh.org no later than July 16.
School boundary changes are nothing new. In fact, the last time boundaries were changed was for the 2018 school year to relieve overcrowding at frontier high school. The district says once a boundary change has been approved this would only impact 9th and 10th graders. Juniors and seniors would not be required to change schools.
