REDMOND — The Redmond School District will have two high schools beginning in 2012-13, and it has begun to decide how those schools will differ academically.

As the district prepares for that opening date, staff are starting to draw academic and boundary lines between the schools. Both the new Ridgeview High School and Redmond High will offer the core classes and electives that students need for graduation. District students will be assigned to one school or the other but will be allowed to transfer for certain reasons.

The district has decided where some programs will be offered. Redmond High, for instance, will house the International Baccalaureate program while Ridgeview High will hold Advanced Placement courses.

There will be some flexibility, possibly allowing an International Baccalaureate student to still take an AP exam. The two schools will offer different career programs.

During a school board meeting Wednesday, Superintendent Shay Mikalson said the district always planned for the two school to be unique.

“The intention was to have complementary high schools, not identical high schools,” Mikalson said.

Redmond High already has and will continue to offer Marine Corps Junior ROTC, agricultural science, technology and manufacturing, construction engineering and technology, automotive technology and aerospace engineering and technology.

At Ridgeview, students will be able to take classes in television production, green technology and engineering, culinary arts, and study in a dental clinic. Ridgeview will also be home to the certified nursing assistant program. The teen parent and child care program will be located at Ridgeview.

The district has not decided where other programs – including computer engineering and human development – will be offered. Mikalson said some changes could still happen to the academic programs. For instance, Redmond High currently has a culinary program and could continue to offer it after Ridgeview opens.

The locations of specific programs are not a school board decision, but some board members praised the policy that Mikalson presented during the meeting.

“I thought it was very clear,” board member Ric Little said. “I like it.”

The attendance boundaries between the schools will be drawn along the district’s existing middle school lines. Graduates of Obsidian Middle School and Tumalo Community School will attend Ridgeview High. Elton Gregory Middle School and Terrebonne Community School students will go to Redmond High.

Those lines, however, will be flexible. The district has not finalized its policy but will offer a transfer policy for students who want to go to a high school other than the one to which they are assigned.

Board member Cathy Miller supported allowing transfers between the schools. Locking students into one school or another would not fit with the district’s push for academic choice, Miller said.

“It just hit me and rubbed me the wrong way, that it’s going to be based on where you live instead of on what’s best for kids,” Miller said.