Redistricting committee releases new boundary options

If you didn’t like any of the initial draft redistricting options for Henrico school boundaries, you’re in luck – there are now more options.

The school system’s 67-member volunteer redistricting committee released a second round of draft options Thursday – two for high school boundaries and one each for elementary and middle school boundaries. The new options do not replace the original Options A and B but rather are designed to provide additional choices, Superintendent Amy Cashwell wrote in an email.

Community reaction to the initial round of draft options largely was negative; only one of the six options earned higher than a 43 percent positive response among the 3,700 respondents to an online survey (elementary school Option A, which received the endorsement of more than 65 percent of respondents).

Much of the anger directed at that initial batch of proposals was aimed at the high school boundary maps; only 37 percent of respondents approved or liked Option A, while just 16 percent said the same about Option B.

Initial reaction among community members in online forums seemed to show that many favored the new Option D at the high school level, which would address several key concerns expressed by large groups of citizens.

Both Options C and D would leave the Godwin and Deep Run High School zones virtually unchanged from their current constructions. Both would keep all of Raintree and surrounding neighborhoods at Godwin High School – a major point of contention among those neighborhoods, which would be moved into the Tucker zone as part of Options A and B. Option C would add a slice of the current Tucker zone northeast of Godwin’s current boundaries, while Option D would add a slightly different slice in the same area.

Option D is the only of the four high school options that would keep the Pemberton Road corridor at Freeman instead of moving it to Tucker. Members of the communities in that corridor were moved from Godwin to Freeman 10 years ago and have publicly resisted the idea of moving to a third high school.

Instead of moving the Pemberton corridor to Tucker, Option D would replace it with the Crestview Elementary zone – which currently attends Freeman and also is resisting a move to Tucker. In Option C, the scenario would be flipped, with the Pemberton corridor feeding to Tucker and Crestview’s zone remaining at Freeman.

Options C and D also would retain most of Glen Allen High’s boundaries, with the exception of its eastern boundaries. Option C would move those much farther west – to Old Washington Highway – and send students east of that point to Hermitage. Option D would set the eastern boundary roughly along Woodman Road, similar to what Options A and B propose.

All four of the high school options would send the River Mill community near Virginia Center from Glen Allen High to Hermitage High, a major point of contention for residents of that budding neighborhood and other adjacent ones.

The redistricting committee is divided into an elementary school subcommittee and a secondary school subcommittee. The elementary subcommittee will meet Jan. 7 from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Hungary Creek Middle School, while the secondary committee will meet at the same time the following day at New Bridge Auditorium. On Jan. 9, the full committee will hold a joint meeting at the same time at Henrico High School. All meetings are open for the public to observe, but the committee will not accept comments.

The Henrico School Board intends to adopt new boundaries in late May. In her email to parents, Cashwell wrote that many additional changes are expected to the draft options between now and then.