The possible denial of kids applying for school of choice to Fossil Ridge High School has students and parents talking. Every student in Poudre School District will have the opportunity to choice in to any or our four high schools,” said Principal Mr. Allen Each student will be able to apply for school of choice, and be given a priority rating from 1-8. Those with a priority of one will be most likely be accepted. Factors that determine the priority rating include: many different factors such as proximity to the school, if a sibling already attends the school, etc. For example a student may be priority one if they live in the neighborhood and have a sibling/parent that attends or works at the school. “Now though, it’s tougher to determine who gets priority. When you factor in things such as music programs and giving kids the opportunities they want.” Allen said.
From the mass amounts of new neighborhoods going up, students moving and students leaving it’s hard to determine how much space is needed and how much space FRHS has. A demographer comes in and calculates the projected enrollment amount of students for the coming year. “Obviously, I have an obligation to accept the students in the neighborhood first. I wish we could accept everyone but we simply don’t have the space,” Allen said.
Meetings are going to take place between the PSD administrators and architects who designed the schools, especially FRHS .Originally, the architect who designed FRHS wasn’t expecting that a school of 850 kids would increase to over 2,000. After determining the capacity each of the four high schools can have, administrators will work from there to place students. If it gets to a point in the future that there’s need to build a new school, PSD owns land all around Fort Collins that they can use for a new school.
“We can’t accept everybody, and I understand that parents just want the best for their children. I’m a parent too, but if we’re over capacity, students wouldn’t be getting quality education if they had 40 kids in one class,” Allen said.
