Parents are expected to pack an Eden Prairie school board meeting Tuesday, pleading with leaders to postpone making the most extensive boundary changes in a decade.
Outrage has risen in the last couple weeks as the district has held public meetings on the proposed changes. About 200 parents recently picketed near the high school, and more than 900 people are on an e-mail list that parent Lora Peterson started to organize opposition.
"This has become a political battle," said George Tadros, whose three children would change schools under the changes. "If we lose it, I'm probably going to move to Edina or maybe Minnetonka. This issue is far more complicated to have [such] an overhaul ... in a month."
The proposed changes, released earlier this month, would move fifth- and sixth-graders from Oak Point Intermediate School into elementary schools that now house grades K-4 and would become K-6 schools.
Redrawing attendance boundaries would allow the district to adjust enrollments in elementary schools by socioeconomic status and building capacity, desegregating and balancing schools.
That's something that Jen Kalaidis, a 2006 Eden Prairie High School graduate, said would help all schools.
"I do think some of the complaints and unrest are valid points, especially people feeling left out of the process," she said. "But also as a recent grad ... there was definitely a racial division that could be addressed and obliterated with the boundary map."
Between the poorest elementary school and the most affluent one, there's a 33 percent disparity in the number of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals.
