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The Henrico County School Board heard proposals Thursday designed to address the school system’s three redistricting “hotspots” while affecting as few families as possible.
The board last month opted to make its redistricting process a two-phase endeavor, putting its countywide redistricting plans on hold in order to first address the most pressing issues – overcrowding at Colonial Trail and Rivers Edge elementary schools; inequities at Quioccasin Middle School; and the need to populate Holladay Elementary School, which is being doubled in size – in time for the 2021-22 school year. The board intends to hold public hearings in November and December about the proposals for each school, then vote Jan. 29 to adopt redistricting plans for them.
Colonial Trail and Rivers Edge elementary schools
Both Colonial Trail and Rivers Edge elementaries were projected to be over 100% capacity this year, and Three Chopt District board member Micky Ogburn had asked staff members at last month’s meeting to prepare a plan that would address both schools.
As she had suggested at that time, the plan put forth by HCPS Chief Financial Officer Chris Sorensen proposed using most of the volunteer redistricting committee’s D4 map for the northwest area of the county. Sorensen said officials now are proposed one exception to that plan — not moving students in the area north of Colonial Trial to Twin Hickory.
As part of the plan to reallocate students from Colonial Trail and Rivers Edge:
• the Shady Ridge neighborhood off Shady Grove Road in Glen Allen would move from Rivers Edge to Shady Grove Elementary, taking 22 students with it;
• another 39 students would be moved out of the Rivers Edge zone, leaving it still over capacity (at 105%) but lower than its previously projected 113% capacity level;
• a projected 103 students would leave Colonial Trail, to create an 89.6% capacity there;
• Echo Lake Elementary would receive 60 students from Longan Elementary;
• Kaechele Elementary School would gain the most students — 155, to put the school at 93.6% capacity.
Ogburn said she liked the proposal for several reasons – primarily because it will affect as few families as such shifting possibly could, she said.
Additionally, during the redistricting for Colonial Trail, the community of Twin Hickory was split; this proposal would bring the community together by sending all students to Twin Hickory.
Since another elementary school is planned somewhere in the West End in the coming years, Ogburn said she would hesitate to move too many students “because we would just have to move them again,” she said.
Holladay Elementary
During the board’s last meeting, Brookland District member Kristi Kinsella asked that new space in the Holladay Elementary School be used to serve pre-K students, relieving schools that are overcapacity in her district.
Sixteen rooms, with a maximum of 18 students per room, could be used for that purpose, Sorensen said. The division’s proposal would use rooms in the existing Holladay Elementary building – not the new section – to house the students, he said.
In total, the proposal would move 212 pre-K students from Dumbarton, Echo Lake, Johnson, Longan, Crestview and Lakeside to Holladay, based upon projections made using the 2019-20 school year enrollment data.
“The proposal does provide immediate capacity relief at some of our Brookland schools with the least impact, in our opinion, on families in that area,” Sorensen said.
Using Holladay’s space would free up two preschool rooms — 44 seats — each at Dumbarton, Echo Lake, Holladay (two trailers rather than rooms), Johnson, and Longan. It would free one room each for Crestview and Lakeside.
The goal for the future would be to provide preschool classrooms to eligible students within their zoned schools, which would be based on capital project funding, Sorensen said.
“Although it’s ideal for our pre-K programs to be in their zoned schools, it’s not feasible at this time,” Kinsella said.
Quioccasin Middle
At last month’s meeting, Tuckahoe District board member Marcie Shea asked that the division address inequity at Quioccasin Middle School, seen in the rate of students receiving free and reduced lunches there as compared with other middle schools in her district.
Equity is really an issue of feeder patterns, Sorensen said, so the division focused on making Quioccasin’s feeder pattern more consistent with those of other schools.
Quioccasin feeds into three high schools, while most Henrico middle schools feed into one or two high schools, he said. (Five middle schools feed into Tucker High School – the most of any the county’s high schools.)
On the map shown above, students above the gray line currently go to Quioccasin, and students below the line to Tuckahoe Middle School, Sorensen said.
The division’ proposal would shift students in the blue area to Quioccasin and students in the orange to Tuckahoe. The shaded area in the northwest corner would send students to Short Pump Middle School instead of Quioccasin, he said.
The map would change Maybeury Elementary School to a feeder for Quioccasin and change Jackson Davis Elementary School’s zone north of Three Chopt Road (as well as Skipwith Elementary School) to feeder schools for Tuckahoe Middle.
She and Ogburn both said they see feeder patterns as a way to build school communities, especially at Tucker, since it has five feeder schools. This plan would reduce that to four feeder schools for Tucker, and the majority would come from Tuckahoe Middle, she said.
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