The Renton School Board voted Wednesday to move forward with plans to open Honey Dew Elementary next year as a full kindergarten through fifth-grade school.

The unanimous decision will alleviate crowded schools that are at or over capacity, but School Board members and the district superintendent felt overcrowding wasn’t entirely addressed.

“But, some of our schools are at capacity and we have to have kids transported to a school that’s close,” said Mary Alice Heuschel, Renton superintendent. “We’re not such a huge district, but it’s still not their neighborhood school, just because of capacity. And so this will alleviate some of that, but again not fix all of the issues because we have some real crowded areas of our population.”

Heuschel was excited the School Board decided to move forward. The school district has planned the reopening of Honey Dew for five years, but until now it didn’t make sense financially to open it.

Opening the school has hinged on enrollment numbers.

Susan Mather, the Renton School District’s chief academic officer, presented the five-year growth plan for Renton’s elementary schools to the board Wednesday night.

She noted that elementary schools are projected to grow by 120 students across the district next year. Many of the elementary schools are over their 100 percent ideal capacity, she said.

“Ideally you want capacity of buildings at about 90 percent because when kids move in, you want them to be able to go to their home school,” Heuschel said later.

The average growth in the district is 157 students a year.

Even with the proposed boundary changes that would come with opening Honey Dew, there’s not going to be a lot of empty space across the district, Mather said.

Board member Pam Teal pointed out it is definitely time to open Honey Dew, but the capacity issue isn’t fixed.

Board member Todd Franceschina asked how opening Honey Dew would affect the budget. Heuschel said enrollment generates the dollars for opening the school.

Even with Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed budget cuts to K-12 education, the opening is still feasible, Heuschel explained.

“So regardless of what the cuts are, there’s an allocation formula from the state based on the number of students that you have,” she said. “And the opening of the school is strictly based on enrollment and space.”

The district has a huge “bubble” in first grade and kindergarten in the Highlands region.

Currently Honey Dew has all the kindergarten classes from Highlands Elementary and the first graders fill the remaining classrooms at Highlands.

As the board moves forward, there will be fairly minor changes to the boundary plans, Heuschel said.

On Monday, the Boundary Review Committee came together to review minor changes made to the boundaries by district administration to improve the number of students attending those affected elementary schools.

The School Board had already approved the committee’s work on the eight elementary school boundaries in December 2010.  There was concern last year from parents that children who live in the Highlands’ Liberty Ridge housing development would be split up. As part of those boundary modifications the Liberty Ridge area would stay together, said Mather. The district’s human resources office will begin work to hire a principal and staff for Honey Dew in January. “A ton of work lies ahead,” said Heuschel.

There will be two presentations on Dec. 7 and 8 to the public on elementary school boundary changes that will take effect next year. From 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Dec. 7 there will be a presentation at Bryn Mawr Elementary School, 8212 S. 118th St. in West Hill.

Also from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Dec. 8 the same presentation will be given at Highlands Elementary School, 2720 N.E. Seventh St. in Renton.