In a relatively calm ending to a weeks-long debate, the Elk Grove Unified School District voted 5-2 Tuesday night to gradually roll out attendance boundary changes aimed at balancing enrollment in the district’s high schools.

Families in the Laguna West area, where the effort has been most controversial, will have two years to adjust to the new boundaries, with all current seventh- and eighth-graders at Toby Johnson Middle School continuing on to crowded Franklin High School.  Current sixth-graders in parts of the Franklin attendance area will ultimately attend Laguna Creek High School, where the district is trying to increase enrollment, but can choose which middle school to attend.

“We’re looking for some kind of compromise between equity and community desires,” board member Pollyanna Levangie said before voting for the proposal. “Your students are the ones we serve,” she told opponents of the changes. “But we also serve all students in the district.”

Elk Grove’s rapid and sometimes chaotic growth has led to vast disparities in the numbers of students at the district’s high schools. Over 3000 students of high school age live in the current Franklin High School attendance area, with only 570 in the Cosumnes Oaks High School attendance area.

The decision capped a tumultuous period for the district, in which parents raised concerns about everything from test scores and safety at some of the district’s high schools to whether students would have to cross busy streets to get to their new schools. Opinion among parents remained divided Tuesday night, with some urging the school board to change the boundaries as early as next school year, while others mounted a last-ditch effort to stall the decision by submitting an alternative plan.

The board rejected that parent-sponsored proposal on the advice of district staff, who said it incorrectly estimated enrollment at the high schools and would affect a larger number of neighborhoods than the district’s proposal.

“I’m disappointed. Our group of parents put a lot of thought into this and we thought our proposal would be taken more seriously than it was,” said Lori Porter, a parent of a fifth-grader at Joseph Sims Elementary who will be affected by the changes. “My son is going to be able to go on to Franklin, but my daughter will be left behind.”

Some of the boundary changes were less contested. In separate votes, the board unanimously decided to shift more students at Irene B. West Elementary School into the Laguna Creek attendance area starting next school year, and to send all students who have attended Robert J. Fite Elementary School to Sheldon High School, starting with this year’s seventh-graders.

“Everyone won’t go home happy tonight,” Board President Priscilla Cox said of the votes. “What we had to do was make some thoughtful decisions about what is going to balance enrollment at our high schools.”

Along with Cooper-Levangie, board members Jeanette Amavisca, Pamela Irey, Willam Lugg, Jr. and Al Rowlett voted to phase in the Laguna West changes. Cox and Board Clerk Chet Madison voted no, saying they preferred a quicker route.

Irey encouraged parents upset with the decision to visit and learn about the schools in their new attendance areas before passing judgment. “Kids are so resilient,” she said. “As parents, we have to step up and be unbiased.”