The attendance lines for school Lexington County School District 1’s newest elementary school have been drawn and approved.

During its regular Dec. 12 meeting, the Lexington County School District 1 Board of Trustees gave final approval to the attendance map for South Lake Elementary School, located at 274 Bluefield Road between Red Bank and Edmund.

The attendance lines for the school, expected to be ready in time to welcome students next year, will cut into the previous attendance areas for Saxe Gotha Elementary and Carolina Springs Elementary.

Existing attendance lines for Carolina Springs Elementary and Saxe Gotha Elementary

New attendance lines for Carolina Springs Elementary, South Lake Elementary and Saxe Gothe Elementary

Clark Cooper, the district’s interim chief of operations, explained that  the new attendance lines use Platt Springs Road as the northern border, reaching White Knoll High before going around the high school and cutting around a neighborhood and reaching some wetlands until hitting Congaree Creek, which is the current boundary between Lexington 1 and Lexington County School District 2.

The previous attendance lines used South Lake Drive as the border between the two attendance zones for Saxe Gothe and Carolina Springs.

With the new lines, Saxe Gotha and Carolina Springs’ estimated attendance will go from 602 and 755 students, respectively, to 453 and 458 students, respectively, with 446 students estimated for South Lake.

In November, Cooper said Carolina Springs uses 15 portable classrooms, with the attendance shifts made possible by South Lake allowing for the school to move all students back into permanent rooms.

The three schools having a fairly even number of students comes with the expectation of further growth within these areas, with Cooper calling the approach the smartest at this point based on the information the district has.

During the Dec. 12 meeting, Cooper reiterated that students who will be rising fifth-graders at Carolina Springs and Saxe Gothe will have the opportunity to be grandfathered in to finish out their elementary school career at those schools. He added that the siblings of those grandfathered in will have the option to remain at those schools as well, adding  that the district has no interest in dividing families.

Cooper said that in drafting the lines, multiple items were taking into consideration, including using facilities efficiently, minimizing the division of subdivisions, allowing future student growth in permanent facilities, the consideration of traffic patterns for efficient and safe student transportation, utilizing natural and major road boundaries (when possible) and minimizing out-of-area shifts.