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TUCSON - The process of closing TUSD schools goes on. A total of 10 schools will close for good and it is now time to make parents aware of just where their displaced children will go to school next year.

The Central West area of TUSD is being hit especially hard with 5 schools targeted for closure.
While most parents have accepted that their kids will be going to another school next year they still have a lot questions about exactly where they will be going and how they are going to get there.

On Tuesday the district held a boundary meeting at Menlo Park Elementary. The focus for TUSD at the meeting was to explain newly drawn boundary lines for schools in the Central West area that will take in the displaced students.

The schools effected include Menlo Park Elementary, Brichta Elementary, Hohokam Middle School, Maxwell Middle School and Wakefield Middle School. According to TUSD Planning Manager, Bryant Nodine, the lines have been drawn but not set in stone,"What we are doing is proposing boundaries and have the community give us feedback on those," he said, "we'll take that back to staff and community committee and they will make a recommendation.

Transportation and school safety were a big part of the discussion at the meeting. But Roz Hewitt, who has a child attending Menlo Park, says she has other issues with the consolidation plan, "I'm also concerned about after school programs because Menlo park elementary has a wonderful after school program and it's free," she said, "Which is very helpful to our community because it's free, because we don't have a lot of money"

Bryant Nodine says the deadline for all these decisions is rapidly approaching, "We have to have a boundary decision by february 12th," Nodine said, "we also have to know what we are going to do in terms of improvements at the receiving schools by february 12th. after that it is all related to how we make that transition."

The district will hold 5 more of these boundary meetings over the next two weeks throughout the city.