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At least two members of the Henrico County School Board are calling for a comprehensive redistricting process that would examine school populations, capacities and anticipated growth at all Henrico public schools and alter boundary lines countywide accordingly.
Brookland District member Bev Cocke – who has been suggesting such a plan for the past year – and Three Chopt member Micky Ogburn, the board’s chair, spoke in favor of the idea at the board’s Sept. 13 work session.
“We haven’t had a comprehensive redistricting in 10 years, and it’s time,” Cocke said, at the end of the board’s 40-minute discussion with school planners about how they project membership levels at county schools.
Ogburn suggested that any potential countywide redistricting effort be implemented at the same time planners begin drawing boundary lines next year for a new elementary school that will open in 2021 adjacent to Holladay Elementary.
A key point of discussion among board members: Whether school system planners are adequately projecting membership totals in specific pockets of the county. Though planners last year came within 0.08 percent in their projection of the total number of Henrico students (missing by just 38 in a district with more than 50,000), there are problems in certain districts, Ogburn and Cocke said.
For example, school planners anticipate that 29.8 public school students will emerge from every 100 single-family homes in Henrico subdivisions.
But Cocke knows of three homes alone in her district that produce a total of nearly 30 by themselves, because three separate families live in each home.
“That is really messing up some of our numbers, which is messing up scheduling and having seats for those students. That all falls into the need, I feel, for this redistricting piece.”
Ogburn (Three Chopt) shared similar stories from her district.
“When I look at all of the development, I see overcrowding,” she said. “You go in the Three Chopt District, and capacity is a real problem right now. It is the thing that I hear about from my constituents the most – that our numbers can’t possibly be right, there’s something wrong somewhere.”
School system officials recognize that there are significant variations in certain areas between projected students and actual students, Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Administration Chris Sorenson said.
“It is an issue,” he said. “We know it’s occurring. But it takes time for some of that to build into our database to project on.”
To support their suggestion of a countywide redistricting process – which hasn’t occurred in a decade – Ogburn and Cocke pointed with disdain to a recent redistricting effort involving Hungary Creek, Holman and Short Pump Middle School. That change hasn’t relieved overcrowding issues as board members hoped it would – particularly at Hungary Creek, which opened beyond its capacity level this month.
The school system’s ability to project accurately how many students will emerge from new housing units is critical information for the county’s Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors, too, Ogburn said. Those boards determine whether to approve new developments, but if they are using faulty numbers to do so, it can result in unintended consequences, Ogburn said.
She cited a recent meeting between planners and residents who live near planned housing at West Broad Village as an example of questionable projections. Officials told attendees at the meeting that three five-story townhomes and 13 single-family homes would produce fewer than 18 students – a number she said she and others consider far too low.
“This is what freaks me out,” Ogburn said. “I see [other] houses being built right in front of Nuckols Farm Elementary and I think, ‘Where are these kids going to school from all of these homes?’”
Ogburn asked Sorenson to provide board members with a report showing which schools are using trailers to address overcrowding and how many they’re each using.
Cocke suggested a timeline for a comprehensive redistricting that would begin in the spring, with the school system accepting applications from citizens who wanted to serve on a redistricting committee, which then could begin meeting next fall.
“It’s time for us to look at it and see what we can do within,” Cocke said, “and then if we need to have some additional schools built, then we would need to go that route as well.”
Disclosure: Brookland District School Board member Bev Cocke is employed as a business development manager by T3 media, LLC, the parent company of the Henrico Citizen.
