A proposed concept plan for a new housing development north of Rock Chalk Park. Courtesy: City of Lawrence

As builders continue to construct homes and apartments in the area near Rock Chalk Park, the activity is not only a reminder that Lawrence is a growing community. It also is a two school district community.

The boundary line between the Perry-Lecompton and Lawrence school districts runs likes pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in the northwest Lawrence area that is south of Interstate 70 and east of Kansas Highway 10. Already there are apartments that are in the Lawrence city limits but in the Perry-Lecompton school district, and now there is talk of a large single-family neighborhood.

The boundary defining the two school districts was drawn in the mid-1960s when the state consolidated school districts into the current unified school district system. West of K-10 to East 1000 Road, there is a piece of the Perry-Lecompton school district that extends from I-70 as far south as Rock Chalk Drive and includes the sports complex. The southernmost part of the salient already is in the Lawrence city limits, and city planning maps designate the remainder as an “urban growth area.”

The first major residential development in the Perry-Lecompton piece is the Links at Kansas apartment complex at 5401 Rock Chalk Road, which is now nearing completion. The complex’s website states the 597 units will open this year. When filled, the complex is likely to have more residents than the approximately 640 people who live in all of Lecompton. Several other homes have been built in the area, but because of the ragged nature of the boundary line, those houses are in the Lawrence school district.

But there also is a current request from Lawrence businessman Michael Garber for the city to annex 97 acres north of Rock Chalk Park so that he can develop a 230-home subdivision. That neighborhood would be entirely in the Perry-Lecompton school district.

Perry-Lecompton Superintendent J.B. Elliott is watching the developments with interest. The Lawrence portion of the Perry-Lecompton district gives the school district one of its best chances for large amounts of residential growth. The Perry-Lecompton district sees a handful of homes built on 2- to 10-acre lots by those seeking rural lifestyles, but its only potential higher density residential growth area is that in northwest Lawrence, Elliott said.

Ready to serve students

The Links at Kansas website states the apartment complex is in the Perry-Lecompton school district and provides phone numbers to the district’s schools. Elliott doesn’t think the apartment complex’s demographic will include many families with school-age students, but would welcome those and any other students from future development in the area.

“The advantage we have right now is we can send a bus to their front door at no cost to the families,” he said. “I would say this, too. If there was enough development there to warrant a neighborhood elementary school, that is something our board would consider.”

Elementary school capacity would not be an immediate issue because lower-grade enrollment in the Perry-Lecompton school district has declined in the past decade, Elliott said.

“Right now, we have room in our buildings,” he said. “Enough room that we are adding a day care in our elementary for children down to 18 months of age.”

That day care will be located next year in the Perry elementary school, which also will house morning and afternoon preschool and kindergarten, Elliott said. District first- through fourth-graders will attend school in the Lecompton elementary school.

Lawrence school district officials are aware of the area’s growth potential, as well. Lawrence school board president Shannon Kimball anticipates growth in the Perry-Lecompton salient would trigger an increase in requests for out-of-district transfers.

“From my perspective, that growth would happen in an area where we are already experiencing the greatest enrollment pressure for our elementary and middle schools,” she said.

It is estimated West Middle School will exceed its current 800-student capacity in the 2020-2021 school year, and Langston Hughes Elementary will exceed its 600-student capacity the following year, Kimball said. That will require the district to revisit the current boundaries for its elementary and middle schools.

Because of those capacity considerations, Kimball doesn’t anticipate the district will reverse its current policy of not accepting out-of-district transfers even if the students were from inside the Lawrence city limits.

“Imagine going to the community with the message Free State High School is overcrowded because we’ve taken out-of-district students,” she said. “I think developers are going to have to make clear that area is in the Perry-Lecompton school district.”

That will give homebuyers in the area something extra to think about. There has been concern that Lawrence homebuyers won’t want to be in a neighborhood that requires their students to go to Perry-Lecompton schools, which are about 10 miles away from northwest Lawrence. Partially in anticipation of that concern, plans for Garber’s 230-home development state the neighborhood will be designed to appeal to retirees and empty nesters.

But parents and students living in the neighborhood would find the Perry-Lecompton school district has much to offer, Elliott said. It provides opportunities that are already attracting transfers from the Lawrence school district.

“I think the small class sizes we offer are attractive to them,” he said. “I think there are those who like the opportunity to participate in multiple activities instead of just focusing on football, for example.”

The De Soto example

Perry-Lecompton could learn from the experience of other districts that experience growth from residential growth from another city on its periphery, Elliott said. Starting in the late 1990s, the De Soto school district experienced explosive growth as subdivisions sprang up after a sewer interceptor was installed in west Shawnee.

“I think De Soto is a model for how a district handled growth,” he said. “First they dropped in elementary schools, then middle schools and moved school boundaries around before building Mill Valley (High School).”

Currently, the only urban infrastructure in the Perry-Lecompton salient is the Baldwin Creek sewer interceptor. Mike Lawless, deputy utilities director for the city of Lawrence, said the interceptor now only serves Rock Chalk Park but was designed with enough capacity to serve the entire watershed that drains from the Kansas River to southwest of Rock Chalk Park.

Sandra Day, Lawrence city planner, said there currently was no other city infrastructure in the Perry-Lecompton salient. The Garber annexation request includes the proposal that the city put the improvement of East 902 Road to city collector street status on its 2019 capital improvement list, she said.