By Amber Lester
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Williamsburg-James City County School Board narrowed its options for redistricting in a special call meeting Wednesday night.
Two new schools - J. Blaine Blayton Elementary and Lois Hornsby Middle - will open in the fall.
The board members agreed to favor option B for both elementary schools and middle schools. Earlier this month, vendor Education Logistics (EDULOG) presented the board with three new redistricting maps for elementary and middle schools. After coming to consensus to focus on one map for each school level, the members discussed anomalies they would like to correct in a hypothetical map, deemed “Option D” by member Elise Emanuel. Look at the maps, now with neighborhood listings,
here.
The board asked Operations Director Earl Tyler to give their suggestions to EDULOG to see how their ideas could affect redistricting based on their three criteria: diversity, capacity and proximity. The vendor contract only allows three maps, so the board has asked to see how their changes would alter the numbers without drawing another map. The board has until April to make a final decision.
Most of the tweaks to the elementary option would move or keep neighborhoods at Matthew Whaley Elementary. The board hopes to see what the maps would look like if all of the following neighborhoods attended Matthew Whaley: Clinton Gardens and surrounding Clinton Garden Road, Mt. Vernon, Holly Hills, Holly Hills Carriage Homes, Yorkshire, Skipwith, Savannah Green, Piney Creek, High Street and Quarterpath.
The board also asked to see what option B would look like if Oakland Estates continued to attend Norge Elementary and Strawberry Plains was redistricted from Matthew Whaley to attend Clara Byrd Baker Elementary.
Prior to its discussion, the board heard opinions from five speakers requesting their neighborhoods not be split or moved from schools. Most speakers were concerned about few children in their neighborhoods being moved from their current schools; Patrick McCaffery of Oakland Estates said that under options A and B, eight students would be moved from Norge Elementary to J. Blaine Blayton Elementary. He said keeping those students at Norge would have minimal effect on the school’s capacity and diversity – two of the board’s three criteria for redistricting.
“I suggest you move the line over to cover Crescent Drive so those eight children could continue to go to Norge. It reflects the will of the community,” he said, gesturing toward four neighbors who joined him at the meeting. He advocated the adoption of option C, but the board pledged to try to include his idea in a revamped version of option B.
Aaron Small, who spoke at previous redistricting forums, said the neighbors in Powhatan Secondary would like to stay together. “I don’t think it matters which school we go to as long as we keep together,” he said.
The board discussed its ideas for about an hour. When it became clear some changes would move students away from the new elementary school, member Joe Fuentes said, “Somebody does have to go to this new school.” He also feared Matthew Whaley could reach its capacity. “I caution that all these little changes aren’t so little,” he said.
Chair James Nickols agreed, saying the members would have to look closely at the effect their changes could have on capacity. “Eventually the ship sinks because we’ve put on so much sand,” he said, to which member John Alewynse responded, “Or it floats so high in the water because it’s empty.”
The board had fewer tweaks for option B of the middle school redistricting maps. Ruth Larson said she would like to see all the neighborhoods on Greensprings Road stay together. “I looked at the middle school maps hard and didn’t see much to change,” said member Jim Kelly.
The board plans to look over the adjusted numbers and evaluate the implication of the tweaks on the maps at the division’s Operations center at a time to be determined on Feb. 9.
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