On Feb. 18, 2015, a new proposal for the remapping of the prior school district’s map was laid out during a board meeting. Headed by assistant superintendent Mike Bateman, the plan is supposed to get rid of pocket boundaries that the current map includes.

There have been several students who have attended different elementary schools than those that are closest to their homes. This issue of trick northern pocket boundaries (areas on the map that are designated for a certain area, but close enough to another area to be associated with that one as well), affect the following areas: Vista Del Valle, Sumner, and Mountain View. Families who have decided to enroll their children into an elementary school that is closer to their home have been considered intra district transfers, even though the students that are transferring are residents of the City of Claremont. The rezoning of the map may eliminate the need for families to transfer their children to different schools within CUSD. Because the number of transfers are few, there has never been a problem of students not being admitted into certain CUSD elementary schools. Each year, about 130 requests for transfers are put in by parents.

The district has never had to deny any of the transfers so far, which is one of the many great things about the CUSD. In the event that a CUSD school began to exceed the number of transfers allowed, these intra district transfers would not be the ones omitted from enrollment, inter district transfers would be the first to go.

Intra district transfers are requested by parents who are already living in the city of Claremont, and would like to attend a different school other than the one zoned to them by the CUSD. For some northern Claremont homes, the school that is in their neighborhood or closest to their home is not the one that had been assigned. Priority for a transfer of schools will always be given to residents of the city of Claremont over inter district transfers, whether they are living in a pocket or not.

The rezoning of the district map is long overdue. Many of the boundaries do not make geographical sense. Most parents would like their children to attend a school that is within walking distance of their house. There are three pocket boundaries that are going to be reconstructed; Bateman proposed that the northern Vista Del Valle residents should be assigned to Sumner instead, the northern Sumner area residents be assigned to attend Condit, and finally, changing the northern Mountain View area to Chaparral. This proposal was approved by the Board of Education and will be in effect on July 1, 2016. The rezoning of the map will hopefully ease the stress that many families encounter when thinking about where they will send their child to school for the upcoming academic year.