County schools may redraw districts
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| Parents and students could see changes as soon as next year. There are timelines for redistricting that begin in 2009 and 2010. (CHRISTINA MERCHANT/ Rockbridge Report) |
A parent advisory committee will be formed to explore whether Rockbridge County elementary school district boundaries should be redrawn.
Two parents from each of the five Rockbridge County elementary schools, nominated by principals of their respective schools, will serve on the council. The committee should be formed within two weeks. The committee will discuss options and begin exploring what will happen if the county begins to move some of the boundaries.
The Rockbridge County School Board decided to form the committee after holding its second work session Monday to consider the boundaries for the five county elementary schools. About 20 people, including school officials and parents, met in the gym of Central Elementary School to discuss the issue.
Currently, Central Elementary is at 92.6 percent capacity, and Natural Bridge Elementary is at 96.7 percent. In contrast, Effinger Elementary is at only 60.3 percent, and Mountain View Elementary is at 78.2 percent.
“The current boundaries are the way they are because of the terrain more than anything else,” said Scott Hannah, director of transportation for the county school system. Hannah told those at the meeting that House Mountain, the Maury River and Buffalo Creek are just three examples of the natural boundaries that were considered when the school districts were created years ago.
In Hannah’s 17 years as director of transportation, he has overseen only one change in the district boundaries. In that instance, a neighborhood in the Fairfield Elementary district was reassigned to Central Elementary, which was much closer.
When the idea of redistricting first came up last spring, Superintendent John Reynolds said the main idea was to ensure “equity and maintenance of viable programs in all of the schools.”
In addition, distance traveled, student-teacher ratios and the opportunity for friends to remain at the same schools will be primary concerns if redistricting occurs.
Reynolds believes that the schools will operate best if they are between 85 and 90 percent full. That level allows room for growth without overcrowding.
Rockbridge County Schools are unusual because of their small student populations, Reynolds said, but sometimes it’s possible to be too small, as is the case with Effinger and Mountain View.
Linda Hooks, a professor of economics at Washington and Lee and mother of a kindergartner at Central Elementary, believes her son’s class of 19 students is too large.
Hooks thinks the redistricting is a win-win situation in which decisions just need to be made about which students to move.
But School Board Chair Laurie Macrae said that sometimes moving a boundary doesn’t make sense if it doesn’t bring new children into a school.
Reynolds said the county’s small and dispersed population makes it difficult to assign boundaries.
“The right solution this year may be the wrong solution next year,” he said.
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