Boundaries aren't sacred.

Byline: The Register-Guard

THE BOUNDARY between the Bethel School District and the Eugene School District might as well be a wall. One district has too many students, the other too few - and neither shows much interest in solving the other's problem. The wall between the districts exists mainly in people's heads, and it's time to knock some holes in it for the benefit of students and taxpayers on both sides.

Willamette High School's enrollment has grown nearly 50 percent since 1991, and within a decade the Bethel School District may need a second high school. North Eugene High School has a current enrollment of 1,154, which is 14 percent below its 1985-86 peak and 18 percent below the school's capacity. North Eugene expects no increase in student numbers in future years.

An obvious solution to the crowding Willamette expects would be to divert some students to North, which is about two miles away as the crow flies. But North is in the Eugene School District. School administrators have a strong incentive to keep students from leaving the district, because state funds are distributed on a per-student basis. Bethel isn't interested in losing enrollment to the Eugene district, and the Eugene district isn't interested in the alternative of allowing the Bethel district to annex North Eugene High.

Such territoriality could prove expensive. A new high school would cost Bethel district taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, and reconfiguring other schools in the district to relieve the enrollment pressure on Willamette would also be costly or disruptive. Meanwhile, Eugene district taxpayers would continue paying the cost of operating North Eugene High at well below its full capacity. Some sort of revenue-neutral enrollment-shifting arrangement should be possible, whereby neither district would suffer under the state funding formula but both would gain from the efficient use of high school space.

The districts' reluctance to consider cross-boundary solutions to enrollment problems stems from more than their financial stake in maintaining their headcounts. The two districts also have distinct cultures - Bethel, in particular, is protective of its identity. This stems from its origins as a rural school district, much of whose territory was gradually and not always willingly absorbed by the city of Eugene. The school district is the largest part of what's left of Bethel's sense of itself as a separate community - specifically, separate from Eugene.

The battles over Bethel's annexation, however, were waged when the grandparents of current Willamette students were in high school. In recent years, much progress has been made toward addressing Bethel-area residents' feelings that they receive less than their share of city services. Any lingering feelings of resentment should not be directed toward the Eugene School District, especially at the expense of students and taxpayers.

What's more, a cultural connection exists, or could be established, between the areas served by North Eugene and Willamette. Forty percent of North's students come from outside the city of Eugene, mostly in the unincorporated River Road-Santa Clara area. The city of Eugene is even less fondly regarded in River Road-Santa Clara than it is in Bethel. The boundary between the Bethel and Eugene districts creates an artificial separation between areas that have much in common.

The Willamette High School Enrollment Study Group is examining a variety of ways to cope with the coming surge of students. It should look beyond the Bethel district's boundaries in preparing its list of options. The Eugene School District, meanwhile, is preparing a master plan for renovations at North Eugene High School, to be paid for with money from the bonds approved last year to finance school improvements and replacements. If North might be called upon to absorb students from the Bethel district, the master plan would have to be drawn accordingly.

No one is suggesting an outright merger of the two districts - though that possibility should not be permanently ruled out. But when each of the two districts has a problem that could be solved by the other, their historic rivalry should not stand in the way of cooperation.