For the past few years, District 833 (South Washington County Schools) has declined most or all intra district transfer requests to East Ridge from students who attend other high school students in the district. Usually, students from Lake Middle attend East Ridge and students from Woodbury Middle attend Woodbury High, but due to the way the district is zoned, a small percentage of people from Lake Middle go to Woodbury High and from Woodbury Middle to East Ridge. While many of the transfer requests to Woodbury are accepted, very little or none of those going to East Ridge are. The district has provided very little information about why they've declined transfer requests, even when asked directly. Their decision to deny these requests has had a significant impact on some students and their families. Due to the current zoning, students are separated from the peers they've known throughout elementary and middle school, and aren't able to rejoin them due to the denial of transfers. Students also aren't able to access educational opportunities that only exist at East Ridge. This has resulted in unfortunate situations for some students. We plan on changing this for the upcoming school year by organizing a petition to the District 833 school board and by presenting this petition at the July 18th school board meeting.