School Board majority favors keeping planned redistricting timeline

The COVID-19 virus may have forced the cancellation of the school year, but it may not alter the timeline of Henrico’s school redistricting process.

During a work session Thursday, four of the five members of the Henrico School Board voiced their support for sticking to the original redistricting schedule and voting to adopt new school boundaries in May or June. Only chairman Roscoe Cooper, III, of the Fairfield District, suggested delaying the process.

The other four members seemed to agree with the concept of using the most recent two sets of boundary options that the 67-member volunteer redistricting committee produced, discussing with committee members their remaining concerns and then making minor changes before voting on new boundaries. The board did not make a formal decision about how to move forward.

“Dragging this out is not in the best interest of our community,” said Three Chopt District board member Micky Ogburn, who joined the meeting electronically. “It has been a long haul so far, and . . . we have two maps. It’s time to let the committee just turn them over to the board and staff and let us move forward with what we’ve got.”

Brookland District member Kristi Kinsella concurred.

“We have had survey after survey, email after email,” she said. “I think we have all the information that we need from those two options to make the decision that we need to make as a board.”

Cooper, though, suggested holding off on the original timeline in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.

“The world has been turned upside down,” he said, “and the question I raise, is now the right time to proceed? People are scared – why move forward and add to the unimaginable stress levels?”

Cooper suggested that the board instead work to make minor boundary shifts to accommodate the three schools that would need them by the fall of 2021 – a new, twice-as-large version of Holladay Elementary and new editions of Tucker and Highland Springs high schools – and resume the countywide redistricting efforts at a later date.

Tuckahoe District member Marcie Shea said she favored sticking to the original timeline in part to end the seemingly endless debates about which zones will change.

“I do have a concern about drawing this process out an additional six or more months,” she said. “This whole process has caused a lot of discord and a lot of disruption. I think families want to know where their children are going to go to school.”

Varina member Alicia Atkins said she’d already spoken with committee members from Varina and agreed with the idea of tweaking the existing two maps based upon their feedback.

The redistricting committee was scheduled to meet earlier this month, but those meetings were cancelled in light of the COVID-19 outbreak, with future meetings likely also to have been impacted. Board members Thursday spoke as if the likelihood of the committee (which has been guided by consulting firm Cropper GIS) meeting again was virtually non-existent.