Land transfer approved for Jackson Heights
About 90 square miles of land has been transferred from Prairie Hills USD 113 to Jackson Heights USD 335 following two days of mediation proceedings last week, putting an end to discussions between a three-school coalition, including Jackson Heights, and USD 113 on how to transfer land into the three districts in the wake of USD 113’s decision earlier this year to close Wetmore Attendance Center.
At the Jackson Heights USD 335 Board of Education meeting on Monday, District Superintendent Jim Howard presented board members with a proposed transfer of land in Jackson, Brown and Nemaha counties — including land surrounding the city of Wetmore — into the Jackson Heights district from the Prairie Hills district, and board members unanimously approved the transfer.
Howard also noted that the mediation sessions with a representative of the Kansas State Department of Education was frustrating but productive, even though the finalized transfer did not include about 27 square miles of land north of 80 Road in Nemaha County and 140 Road in Brown County that Jackson Heights had requested for transfer.
The land transfer had been requested in light of Prairie Hills’ decision in February to close Wetmore Attendance Center at the end of the 2022-23 school year, followed by more than 100 WAC students making the decision to attend Jackson Heights schools. The Nemaha Central and Vermillion districts were drawn into the land transfer proceedings as WAC students had expressed a desire to attend those schools.
Prairie Hills had expressed some interest in transferring land into the Jackson Heights, Nemaha Central and Vermillion districts, but when the three districts noted that a land transfer proposal from Prairie Hills “no longer reflects the enrollment trends within this region or within each of those districts individually,” the three-district coalition sought mediation proceedings with KSDE.
Representatives of the four school districts involved met in Topeka on Dec. 5 and 6 for mediation proceedings, it was reported. According to a joint press release from the four districts, Prairie Hills was able to reach a land transfer agreement with both the Jackson Heights and Vermillion school districts, and those agreements were approved on Monday, although deliberations between Prairie Hills and Nemaha Central are “ongoing but are not resolved at this time.”
Jackson Heights and Vermillion district officials will begin the process of drafting legal descriptions for the proposed land transfers, which are subject to the approval of the Kansas State Board of Education, it was reported.
Jackson Heights had recently conducted a survey of landowners in the area the district had sought for transfer, but Howard noted that the survey, which sought to obtain landowners’ thoughts on which school district they would support, “was not taken into account by the opposing side.” The state mediator, on the other hand, was “very intent on where students lived” when taking the land transfer into account, Howard added.
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