The committee charged with recommending boundary lines for the new Henry Mayfield Elementary School has made a decision.

The committee, which, is made up of teachers, principals, administrators and parents, met for the third time Tuesday evening before making its recommendation.

The School Board administration presented the committee with three sets of boundaries to consider. The committee then came up with a fourth. But in the end, it was one of the final three original maps that the committee recommended. Meredith Mendez, spokesperson for the school board, said the committee said it chose map number 3 because it had the most appropriate population numbers with which to start a new school.

The boundary limits for the new school are carved out of the existing boundaries for Carolyn Park Middle School and Bayou Woods Elementary School.

The recommended boundary lines draw the line at Airport Road north of Interstate 12 and Thompson Road south of the Interstate.

If the school board adopts the chosen map, all of the students west of this line will go to the new school when it opens next school year.

The committee also recommended letting the students in their last year at Carolyn Park finish out the final year there.

The committee recommended opening the school with only pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, and adding the sixth grade the next year.

Parents attending the meetings discussed various concerns and were provided with detailed student demographic information for each of the four maps proposed. 

Copies of the maps were on display in the lobby of the School Board Central Office in Covington and at Bayou Woods Elementary School and Carolyn Park Middle School.

Mendez said the committee had liked the idea of the fourth map, which included both sides of Airport Road in the new school district, but opted to not recommend that one because it would put too many students at the new school.

There are currently 843 students at Bayou Woods Elementary School and 564 students at Carolyn Park Middle School.

The recommended boundaries would reduce those numbers to 459 and 313 respectively and place an estimated 635 students at the new Henry Mayfield Elementary.

The new school is being built to accommodate 780 students, but Superintendent Gayle Sloan has said she does not want to start it off at full capacity.

The School Board will consider the recommended attendance map at its April 8 Committee As A Whole meeting. It will have the final vote on the boundary map chosen. It will also vote on the recommendation to open the school without the sixth grade for the first year.