Des Moines Public Schools is poised to redraw the map that determines which school thousands of children attend, with a public hearing scheduled for Wednesday and a school board vote set for November 17. The proposed attendance boundaries would replace the district's current feeder patterns with three new regions — northeast, northwest and south — and phase in gradually starting with the 2028-29 school year.
The overhaul is part of the district's $265 million Reimagining Education plan, according to The Des Moines Register. Attendance boundaries determine which schools students attend based on their home addresses, and the new regions would be divided geographically by the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers, according to KCCI. Under the plan, students in the northeast would be assigned to East High School, students in the south to Lincoln High School, and students in the northwest to Roosevelt High School, per the Register's reporting. The boundary changes would continue phasing in through 2032.
Two High Schools Would Become Opt-In Programs
North and Hoover would shift from traditional neighborhood high schools into opt-in Signature Schools, offering specialized programs in STEM, the arts, Montessori or dual-language instruction, the Register reports. North's planning documents describe its pathway as engineering-centered, with a focus on engineering systems, robotics and biomedical design for grades 7-12, according to the district's Signature School Plan Proposal. Hoover, paired with Meredith, would focus on technology integration, coding, digital design and media technology.
The transition carries real timing complications. North would continue enrolling incoming freshmen through its traditional boundary for two additional years before starting to enroll seventh-graders into its signature program in 2029-30, per the Register. That staggered rollout means the proposed North pathway could require some students to change schools in three consecutive years, according to the same reporting. Across the district, families who do not opt into a Signature School would simply attend their assigned neighborhood school, and current students may generally remain at their schools through the highest grade offered.
Who Gets Priority for the New Signature Schools
DMPS plans to offer 10 Signature Schools throughout the community, with families able to choose programs from any region, according to the district's Reimagining Education page. Signature school applicants would receive priority in a set order: first for students in the school's original neighborhood, second for other students in the same region, third for in-district transfers from another region, and fourth for students outside the district altogether, the Register reports. Families would need to apply to attend, since Signature Schools are meant to operate as voluntary programs rather than traditional neighborhood schools.
District officials have framed Signature Schools as a retention and recruitment tool — intended to help DMPS keep current students and attract families who might otherwise enroll in neighboring districts. Robert Schwarz, DMPS' planning consultant with RSP & Associates, said the district is still developing the curriculum and programming expected to drive enrollment in those schools, per the Register's reporting.
Transportation Remains the Biggest Open Question
Perhaps no issue drew more scrutiny than how students would actually get to these new schools. The district has not yet finalized transportation details for students who opt into Signature Schools, KCCI reported. Bekah Harris, DMPS' lead project manager for Reimagining Education, said in September that officials were developing transportation plans for signature school students involved in athletics, fine arts and other activities. But neither a transportation plan nor a cost estimate was presented at the district's October 20 board meeting, according to the Register.
DMPS plans to share more transportation information at meetings in January and April 2027. Sara Hopkins said transportation is necessary for successful signature or magnet schools to work, the Register reports, while the district's proposal would make DMPS more dependent on transportation generally as buildings close or convert to Signature Schools. Complicating matters further, the Reimagining Education bond funds school-building improvements but not buses or drivers, per Ryan Howell's account to the Register.
Feedback From Families Flagged Six Major Concerns
Harris outlined six major feedback themes reviewed by the boundary committee at the October 20 board meeting, according to the Register. Those included preserving the Hanawalt Elementary boundary, preserving the Hubbell Elementary boundary, concerns about Studebaker Elementary's capacity, walkability and transportation, the opt-in signature model, and the timing of changes at North High School. Despite those concerns, the proposed boundaries would expand Hanawalt's attendance area while reducing Hubbell's — a trade-off the district's boundary updates page said was necessary, noting that maintaining Hanawalt's current configuration would require significant districtwide boundary and pathway adjustments and create an imbalance in signature schools.
Alyssa McDonald, who served on the boundary committee as a parent, said the proposal would reduce northeast enrollment and would shift hundreds of students from the northeast zone into the northwest and south zones, per the Register. The committee gathered this input during public meetings held over the summer. A districtwide survey found that 46% of respondents supported the proposed attendance boundaries, according to the Register's reporting.
Sixth Grade Expansion and Capacity Fixes
The new boundaries would also allow more elementary schools to add sixth grade, continuing a shift DMPS began piloting at Findley Elementary in the 2024-25 school year before expanding to four more elementary schools in 2025-26, according to the district. Oak Park and Cattell, however, were categorized as having limited potential to add sixth grade, the Register reports, and officials have said their long-term goal is to move sixth grade into elementary schools broadly, even though solutions for every building's sixth-grade plans have not yet been finalized.
Studebaker Elementary is at the center of one capacity fix already underway. Construction began last month on an $8.2 million expansion that will add six classrooms, new playground space, remodeled front offices, about 40 parking spaces and an extended drop-off loop, according to the Business Record. The project is expected to be finished by the start of the 2027-28 school year and will raise the school's enrollment capacity to 640 students — relevant given that Studebaker is projected to enroll between 500 and 570 students by the 2030-31 school year, per the Register. Studebaker is one of more than a dozen DMPS schools slated to receive added classroom or career and technical education space.
If the boundaries are approved, DMPS plans to create an address-based online tool allowing families to identify their assigned school and any Signature School options available to them, according to the Register. The new secondary-school attendance areas are also designed so high school and middle school boundaries generally align, creating a more consistent feeder system intended to help the district more accurately forecast incoming sixth- and ninth-grade enrollment, per the DMPS attendance areas page. For now, the plan heads to Wednesday's public hearing, with the school board's final vote scheduled for November 17.
