The Iberia Parish School District is beginning one of its most ambitious projects of this year as it begins the process of moving Anderson Middle School to Sugarland Elementary.

Superintendent of Schools Heath Hulin said at Wednesday’s Iberia Parish School Board meeting that the first phase of the project, which was unanimously approved at the meeting, will disburse the students currently occupying Sugarland Elementary to four other elementary schools in Iberia Parish in order to make way for the new location for Anderson students and staff.

The school district has been working with demographer Mike Hefner in order to ensure that the elementary students will be rezoned to schools near their homes.

“Our goals were not just to move students all at once,” Hulin said. “We wanted to make sure they were near their homes so we weren’t busing them across the district and we wanted to avoid overcrowding so that we keep a balanced population.”

For the next school year, Sugarland students will be rezoned to either Park Elementary, Center Street Elementary, Jefferson Island Road Elementary and Johnston-Hopkins Elementary depending on where the student lives.

One of the main challenges of the project, Hulin said, was the ripple effect the new populations will have on the four schools. For instance, about 120 students will be moving to Center Street Elementary, and the move will cause some students who live outside city limits and currently attend Center Street to be moved to Jefferson island. That ripple effect will then cause some students attending Jefferson Island to be pushed to Coteau Elementary.

The rezoning will fix some long-standing issues, however. Hulin said there are students living on Coteau Road who are currently zoned to attend Jefferson Island, but the rezoning will allow them to attend Coteau Elementary instead.

Park Elementary will be absorbing a large portion of the Sugarland population, which will cause some Park students to be rezoned for Daspit Elementary. Those students were that were acquired following the closure of North Street Elementary and Hulin said they would be better served at Daspit.

With the approval of the plan, the district is beginning the large task of implementing the rezoning, and Hulin estimated that communications will begin with parents after the Easter break. Open houses at each of the schools will begin in May for students and parents to view the schools and meet the teachers.

“Change is never easy but we believe this is a fair and equitable redistribution of students and we’re committed to working with the families and staff to ensure a smooth transition for everybody,” Hulin said.

The superintendent said that students attending their last year at an elementary school will have the option of staying at the school they are currently attending. The rezoning will also have savings for the school district for staff due to teachers retiring with the move and non-certified teachers no longer being needed.

The rezoning comes following the decision to permanently close the current location of Anderson Middle School. District officials cited the high crime in the Anderson area as part of the reason for the move, and students and staff will be relocated to the current location of Sugarland Elementary next to Westgate High School.

Additional renovation and expansions to the Sugarland building are expected to begin this year in order to accommodate the new middle school as well. The project comes after the renewal of a school board bond for maintenance to the school district, with the Anderson project being sold as the flagship project for the newly acquired funds.