Hannibal School Board votes to eliminate grade span schools from list of redistricting options

HANNIBAL, Mo. — Hannibal School District Superintendent Susan Johnson has heard the questions. The steps the Hannibal School Board took during Tuesday’s meeting will allow her to better answer those questions.

While the board did not make a final decision about redistricting, the members approved board president Blane Mundle’s motion to eliminate grade span schools from the list of options.

“It’s not that (grade span schools were) necessarily a good or bad idea. I think it’s just a bigger change and one that would require a lot of planning and maybe more planning than we have available to us if we’re looking at next year,” Johnson said. “That may be looked at in the future, I don’t know.”

The board also voted in favor of no longer allowing permit of transfers for non-staff members for the 2025-26 school year. Permit of transfers was a common topic of conversation during Sept. 25’s community forum regarding redistricting.

“I knew that this would probably come up, but the more I listened, permit of transfers came up when people would ask questions at the end,” Johnson said.

With three different redistricting options on the table at the time, however, it was difficult for Johnson to answer those questions with certainty. Permit of transfers can impact enrollment numbers at different schools.

“As we talked about the three options, a lot of people are wanting answers to the specific questions, and I want to provide them. But when you’re looking at it through such a big lens with three different options, it’s a little difficult,” Johnson said. “I felt like it was important for me to bring up permit of transfers to the board tonight because that is one of those metrics than can really skew things. For me to be able to give more concrete answers, I had to scale that in a little bit.”

Johnson has been tasked with developing a permit of transfers appeal process that parents could go through if they want their children to attend an elementary school other than the one in the same boundaries as their home.

“There are always exceptions in which something may need to be considered,” Johnson said. “I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it yet, but my initial thought is getting a small committee together to help me out with (developing an appeal process). Then I’ll be able to present that to the board because we’re looking toward next school year. I have a little bit of time, but I want to be timely with that because I know that creates some anxiety for people. I want to make sure everyone feels heard.”

Johnson said making that decision regarding permit of transfers had to happen sooner rather than later.

“Timeliness was important because any time a decision is made that might change how things are operated, you want to make sure that families have as much notice as they can so they can plan accordingly,” Johnson said. “They want to be able to have conversations with their kids about preparations they may need to make. Ultimately, they’d want to be well prepared long before the start of next school year.” 

The board will decide on how to move forward with redistricting at the Nov. 19 meeting. One of the remaining options is a restructured redistricting process that involves simply combining the enrollment at Eugene Field Elementary into the other four schools. Students at Eugene Field would be relocated to Oakwood and Stowell Elementary. The other option would keep all five elementary schools, and boundary lines would be redrawn so the populations are more evenly distributed.

The board could also decide not to redistrict.

“I really feel strongly, and I know the board agrees with this, that if a change is to occur, it really needs to be done in November because you want to be able to make plans accordingly and communicate with people as quickly as you can,” Johnson said. “There will be staffing changes and things like that depending on what is selected. It creates anxiety for everybody involved.”

Even though a final decision on redistricting must wait another month, Johnson will work on designing a permit of transfers appeal process and organizing a board work session that would be open to the public.

“That’s just an opportunity for me to continue to dig down into the data,” Johnson said of the board work session. “Now that we have just two options instead of three, that will help a little bit. I want to be able to give them true data, like for example: If we have 198 students that have permit of transfers, how many of those (parents) are staff members? We just want to give concrete answers to all those questions that people had.”

A date, time and location for the board work session have not yet been set.