Hannibal School District elementary redistricting could include shifting boundaries, closing Eugene Field

HANNIBAL, Mo. — The Hannibal School District is on the verge of doing something it hasn’t done in more than two decades: Redistricting its elementary schools either through traditional redistricting or closing one of its elementary schools.

Hannibal hasn’t redistricted on this large of a scale since 2000.

“We have a small internal committee, and we’re just exploring numbers, gathering data,” Superintendent Susan Johnson said. “We’re looking at three different models, one having five elementary schools as we currently do and the other two having four elementary schools.”

The option with five elementary schools would simply include redrawing the district boundary lines so that the populations are more evenly distributed.

If the district chooses one of the plans with four elementary schools, Eugene Field Elementary would close. One of those plans is a restructured redistricting process that involves simply combining the enrollment at Eugene Field into the other schools. Students at Eugene Field would be relocated to Oakwood and Stowell Elementary. The other plan with four schools would involve a grade distribution change with grades K-3 at Stowell, Mark Twain and Oakwood Elementary, and fourth and fifth graders at Veterans.

“Eugene Field is our oldest elementary school, and just keeping that building and all of them in good condition is important,” Johnson said. “It’s almost 100 years old and it is not ADA compliant. Enrollment in that school has dropped dramatically.”

That declining enrollment throughout the district and imbalance in enrollment between the district’s five elementary schools are the primary factors driving the idea of redistricting. 

“Over the past 10 years, we’ve lost around 200 kids,” Johnson said. 

Currently, Stowell Elementary has 223 students with a maximum capacity of 350, Eugene Field has 169 with a maximum of 300, Mark Twain has 390 with a maximum of 400, Oakwood has 272 with a maximum of 350, and Veterans has 435 with a maximum of 500.

“In our community, the town tends to be growing to the west,” Johnson said. 

The committee working on the redistricting plans is using five factors for determining the best course of action — enrollment balance, socio-economic balance, transportation distance and safety, maintaining subdivisions, and minimizing the number of students who have to change schools.

“We’re trying not to cause a huge disruption, trying not to rock the apple cart, so to speak,” Johnson said.

The district hosted a community forum Wednesday at the Roland Fine Arts Center to gather input from the public regarding the district’s proposals. Concerns revolved around socioeconomic factors such as the number of students who will be receiving free and reduced lunches, class sizes (it would likely be a modest increase), the financial implications of the plans that include four elementary schools (these plans would save the district a considerable but unknown amount of money), and what will happen to the teachers and staff at Eugene Field if the school were to close (they would be moved into other buildings), among other things.

“We’re getting input from our community stakeholders that then can be taken back to the Board of Education to help them in reaching a decision, whatever that decision may be,” Johnson said.

Johnson hopes for a vote from the school board at October’s meeting regarding a course of action for redistricting.

“My recommendation would be November at the absolute latest,” Johnson said of the timeline on a decision. “If they feel like they can’t reach a decision by then, my recommendation would be that we need to not enact something for the 2025-26 school year. I can’t speak for them, but that’s what I would say.”