New round of redistricting options coming

Henrico Schools officials are set to unveil updated sets of school redistricting options this week, following some contentious responses to the initial draft versions of those options released last month.

The updated versions are expected to take into consideration some of the feedback officials received about the first three sets of drafts – “Option A” and “Option B” for elementary, middle and high school boundaries.

The 67-member redistricting committee is split into an elementary and a secondary subcommittee, which met separately earlier this month to review public input and to receive and consider updated student enrollment information and socioeconomic data from school system officials before crafting changes to the proposals.

Committee members also received direction for the first time about a newly proposed elementary school in the Virginia Center area and a classroom addition likely to take place at Hungary Creek Middle School – both targeted for completion by the fall of 2022.

The committee didn’t take those projects into consideration during its first few months of work, because the School Board hadn’t proposed them until October and didn’t adopt them into its capital improvement program (a list of infrastructure projects for which it will seek funding from the Board of Supervisors) until last month. No funding source exists for those projects yet, and the board isn’t likely to know for several months whether supervisors will include money for either in their Fiscal Year 2020-21 budget.

As it considers adjustments to the proposed boundaries, the redistricting committee will prepare options that include both potential additions, Henrico Schools Chief Financial Officer Chris Sorensen told the School Board Dec. 12.

“Both schools would impact a relatively small impact of the county, so it’s not like they would have to redraw all their maps and all their zones,” Sorensen said of the committee. “We’re very confident that we can work and just have a minimal impact on those immediate schools.”

The redistricting process is designed to plan for the increased capacity of Holladay Elementary School – which will double in size for the 2021-22 school year – and new editions of Highland Springs and Tucker high schools, both of which will open that same year; and to maximize available classroom space countywide while reducing the concentration of poverty at schools when possible.

First drafts inspired many complaints
School officials, consulting firm Cropper GIS (which is leading the redistricting effort) and committee members heard an earful during the past month from citizens who were upset about the first draft of new boundaries.

Among commonly cited complaints: some new boundaries would split neighborhoods, move students to a school farther from home than their current school, increase the concentration of poverty at a school, move a neighborhood that was moved during the last major redistricting 10 years ago or require longer or more dangerous commutes for students.

Some respondents also complained about the process, expressing frustration that they weren’t able to provide verbal feedback during the two public input sessions held last month at Wilder Middle School and Godwin High School and suggesting that the online survey designed to capture their thoughts wasn’t as open-ended as they had hoped.

About 1,200 people attended those public information sessions, and nearly 3,700 people subsequently completed the online survey about the redistricting options; about half of those respondents said they lived in either the Short Pump, Crestview, Longan or Pemberton elementary school zones. Only 65 total survey respondents said they lived in one of the 13 elementary school zones in Eastern Henrico – a number that represents less than two-tenths of one percent of the total number of respondents.

Among survey respondents, Option A was the clear draft proposal of choice at the elementary school level, with more than 65 percent saying they approved or liked it, compared with just less than 41 percent said the same of Option B.

At the middle school level, neither option enjoyed much support. Only 43 percent approved or liked Option A, while 40 percent said they disliked or opposed it. Just less than 34 percent said they approved or liked Option B, while nearly 44 percent said they disliked or opposed it.

The high school options generated even less support than that among respondents; about 37 percent said they approved or liked Option A, while 56 percent said they disliked or opposed it. Just 16 percent of respondents said they approved or liked Option B, while 76 percent said they disliked or opposed it. The top two reasons in both cases for disapproval were neighborhood and transportation concerns.

Redistricting is 'premature,’ supervisor writes
In a Nov. 14 e-mail response to a constituent, Tuckahoe District Supervisor Pat O’Bannon wrote that she wanted the redistricting process to be halted.

“I have spoken with the County Manager, asking him to please convince the Superintendent to “pause” this assessment,” she wrote. “It is premature, since over the course of the next 18 months, the county is building two new high schools and an elementary school – both of which will skew the numbers. Also, there will be a new school board in one month!!! They should be allowed to get “up to speed” on this process, before making a decision.”

Among the feedback school officials received from citizens in dozens of letters about the draft options:

• concerns about why the redistricting process began before the School Board’s decision to add plans for the new elementary school and expansion of a middle school. “Wouldn't it make more sense to wait and do it when the county, committee, and consultant have a full complement of information?” Henrico resident Rebecca Ivey wrote in a letter.

• concerns from many residents of Raintree and nearby subdivisions that would be moved out of the Godwin High School zone despite the fact that many of their students currently walk to school there;

• a petition from more than 650 residents from several subdivisions in Glen Allen, including River Mill – the region expected to be served by the new elementary school – seeking to keep students in the area zoned for Hungary Creek Middle School and Glen Allen High School instead of being moved to Brookland Middle and Hermitage High.

• a petition from more than 120 residents of several Pemberton Road corridor neighborhoods seeking to keep them together at Jackson Davis Elementary instead of moving them to Pemberton Elementary;

• concerns from others in the same corridor about plans to move students from those neighborhoods out of the Freeman High zone into the Tucker High zone, a decade after they were moved from Godwin to Freeman;

• a petition from more than 80 residents of the Oak Run, Morgan Run and Barony Woods neighborhoods to keep those areas together at Short Pump Elementary, Pocahontas Middle and Godwin High;

• a petition from more than 50 residents of the Lake Loreine and McCabe’s Grant neighborhoods in Short Pump opposing both options at the middle and high school levels; the plans would split the neighborhoods at the high school level, with some being sent from Godwin High to Tucker High, and would send either some or all of the neighborhoods from Pocahontas Middle to Quioccasin Middle;

• concerns from the Crestview Elementary School community that moving it from the Freeman High zone to the the new Tucker High would reduce the diversity levels at Freeman while increasing poverty levels at Tucker – and in the process divide the stable Crestview community;

• concern from residents of the Ridge Elementary School zone that some of the neighborhoods that currently feed to Ridge, Tuckahoe Middle and Freeman High would be moved out of those zones despite the fact that students can walk to those schools;

Responding to Fairfield District School Board member Roscoe Cooper, who asked what role HCPS Director of Equity and Diversity Monica Manns is playing in educating committee members about diversity goals, Henrico Superintendent Amy Cashwell said Manns and Matt Cropper of Cropper GIS have had conversations about the topic with the committee.

“We want to make sure that the individuals [on the committee] aren’t just thinking about their own neighborhood or their own community, but thinking about Henrico County schools and the objectives that were outlined, so I know that’s been the focus,” Cashwell said.

Next steps
The subcommittees will meet Jan. 7 (elementary) and 8 (secondary), and a joint meeting of both groups is tentatively planned for Jan. 9, according to Henrico Schools Education Specialist for Planning Justin Briggs. Each subcommittee will meet again in February.

The committee’s next public information sessions are planed for March 4 and 5, at which it will display updated draft boundary options. The School Board – which will replace three retiring members with three newly elected ones Jan. 1 – intends to adopt new boundaries in late May, and a number of additional changes to the proposals are likely before then.