Henrico School Board to discuss next steps in redistricting process

The COVID-19 pandemic began just as the Henrico School Board was narrowing its school redistricting plans in March, but the board this week will revisit the process for the first time since indefinitely halting it April 6.

The board was seeking to adjust boundaries throughout the county in preparation for the opening of new versions of Highland Springs and Tucker high schools and an expanded version of Holladay Elementary School next fall. Those three projects – along with the desire of school system officials to efficiently use all available space, plan for future growth and reduce the concentration of poverty at schools wherever possible – prompted the redistricting effort, which began officially last September.

By the time the pandemic hit, school officials had pared more than 30 redistricting options devised by a 67-member citizen redistricting committee and consultant Cropper GIS down to just two – D4 and E4.

The board isn't expected to take any action on either plan during its Thursday work session, though. Rather, its discussion is designed merely to set a timeline for resuming the process in some form, Tuckahoe District board member Marcie Shea said in a Facebook Live video Monday.

“It is essentially a plan for when we might make a plan,” she said, suggesting that no other significant information would come from the discussion.

The board could choose from one of three possible options described in board papers:
• resume the process;
• end the process with no additional action;
• narrow the process to include only specific concerns of board members.

With less than a year before the three schools open in their new forms – coupled with the uncertainty about what school enrollment may look like next fall – the latter option may be the most likely of the three.

Board members originally had planned to adopt new boundaries by late May in order to prepare for their implementation by next fall. Now, in a best-case scenario, such adoption seems highly unlikely in the next several months. But some shifts in attendance zones will be needed by next fall – especially at Holladay, which school officials chose to double in size when they couldn’t find desirable land for a separate school in the area.

At the board's March 26 meeting, chairman Roscoe Cooper, III suggested delaying the countywide effort but making small-scale shifts to accommodate those three schools for the 2021-22 school year, a plan that board members could consider Thursday.

The pandemic has thrown more than one wrench into the redistricting plans, though. When Henrico opted for a virtual return to school this month, the families of hundreds or perhaps thousands of students who had been enrolled in the system removed them in favor of private schools or homeschooling efforts.

The exact number, however, isn’t yet known; school system officials take their official count later this month and will report it shortly thereafter. The results could impact the action of the board, which also will have to project how many of those students might re-enroll in Henrico once school reopens for full in-person learning.

As typically is the case with school redistricting proposals, much of the public feedback school system officials received during the process last fall and this spring came from residents who objected to their homes potentially being zoned to different schools.

One of the major remaining sticking points was at the high school level. Option D4 would keep the Pemberton Road corridor together at Freeman but move the Crestview Elementary School zone to the new Tucker High School, while E4 would reverse that scenario. Both sets of communities want to remain at Freeman. The Pemberton corridor moved from Godwin High to Freeman during the last countywide redistricting in 2009.

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To view the agenda for the Henrico School Board's Sept. 24 work session, which begins at 1 p.m., click here and then select the Sept. 24 meeting.

To submit a comment prior to the board's Sept. 24 work session, click here.

To view a live stream of the meeting online, visit henricoschools.us beginning at 1 p.m., Sept. 24.