Lake Dallas school officials will host two meetings this week to discuss elementary transition plans for the 2009-10 school year.

District officials will answer questions and discuss plans to close Lake Dallas Primary and Intermediate schools at the end of this semester and consolidate them into Lake Dallas Elementary School, opening in August. They will also talk about making all the district’s elementary schools more uniform.

District spokesman Christopher Lamb said that with the addition of a new campus, the district chose to implement a master plan that’s been discussed since 1993. The plan, approved in 2002, will establish three main elementary campuses that feed into one middle school and then the high school.

Currently, schools are configured to where some students could potentially attend five campuses before graduating high school.

Under the new plan, all students will attend an elementary school for kindergarten through fifth grade before advancing to middle school. Next year Shady Shores Elementary and Lake Dallas Elementary will offer pre-kindergarten classes.

Superintendent Gayle Stinson said she’s optimistic the new model will “promote a sense of community” and strengthen relationships among staff and families.

“We have been working several years to get to this point, and with the opening of Lake Dallas Elementary, we are excited about the opportunity for children to remain in one single neighborhood elementary until they are prepared to go to middle school,” she said in a statement.

Currently, Lake Dallas Pri­mary School, built in 1981, offers pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. Corinth Elemen­tary School houses kindergarten through fourth grade, while students attending Shady Shores Elementary range from first to fourth grades.

All fifth-grade students currently attend Lake Dallas In­ter­mediate, a campus built in 1966 as the city’s main high school. In later years, the campus served as a middle school.

Under the new plan, space will allow 650 to 750 students to attend each elementary school, Lamb said.

“We will have the capacity to grow in our facilities at the campuses for the next few years … which is nice,” he said.

In addition to the discussion of grade configurations, district officials will also answer questions about attendance zones for next school year. Proposed zones indicate that students living in city limits south of Swisher Road or in Hickory Creek will attend Lake Dallas Elementary, a facility approved by voters in a $25 million bond election in 2007.

Students who live north of Swisher or east of Interstate 35E will attend Shady Shores Elementary.

Attendance zones for Corinth Elementary will remain the same. 

Parents can request to transfer their child to a school outside their attendance zone, but transportation would not be provided.

Because of a rather large fifth-grade class, Corinth Elementary will not accept transfers for the 2009-10 year, Lamb said. All students entering fifth grade next year who live outside the attendance zone will be “grandfathered in,” Lamb said. Siblings of students currently attending Corinth Elementary will also have the option to transfer. 

Transition meetings are scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at Corinth Elementary and 7 p.m. Thursday at Shady Shores Elementary.

BRITNEY TABOR can be reached at 940-566-6876. Her e-mail address is btabor@dentonrc.com .