Tabled again: Henrico School Board says now is not the time to redistrict

Last fall, the Henrico School Board punted on its redistricting process and decided to revisit the plan in 2021.

The conversation was reopened at Thursday’s School Board work session as board members discussed this fall’s enrollment figures. Four schools are over capacity: Rivers Edge Elementary, Deep Run High, Freeman High and Glen Allen High.

School Board member Kristi Kinsella, of the Brookland District, brought up “the R-word," sparking a discussion about the comprehensive redistricting process that was tabled last fall.

Citing the unpredictability of enrollment figures due to the pandemic, Vice Chair Marcie Shea (Tuckahoe District) said that now is not the time to do a comprehensive redistricting.

“It doesn't mean that we are ignoring (problems) or that we are not going to tackle them,” Shea said. “But we are not tackling them right now.

School Board member Micky Ogburn, who represents two of the four overcrowded schools, said “we can’t redistrict our way out of this problem.”

There are three schools in the Three Chopt District that are currently using trailers as classrooms due to overcrowding, according to Ogburn. When Jackson Davis Elementary is rebuilt, the capacity project should hopefully alleviate some of the overcrowding, Ogburn said. The rebuild is a $40.9 million potential November 2022 bond referendum project to be completed in FY23-28.

“I don't want to move kids twice and right now, my goodness, is probably the worst time that we can do this to our families, to add that stress,” Ogburn said. “We're going to have to live with trailers for a while. Help is coming, but it's going to take us a while to get there.”

Superintendent Amy Cashwell conferred with the board members and said that her administration is not recommending moving forward with comprehensive redistricting.

School Board members had planned to vote in May 2020 on a comprehensive redistricting plan that would’ve moved thousands from their zoned schools. When those plans were put off, the board agreed to revisit plans this fall.

“We agreed to revisit the process of school attendance zones and we agreed to do it in the fall,” said School Board member Alicia Atkins. “It’s important to do what we say we’re going to do.”

School Board member Atkins agreed to defer on the formal process, echoing other board members’ comments that “right now is just not the time.”

In lieu of a comprehensive redistricting plan, the board approved in January a small-scale redistricting that impacted some students at a handful of western Henrico elementary schools.

The county’s last comprehensive redistricting took place in 2009.

At Thursday’s School Board workshop, board members did not say when they would return to planning a comprehensive plan to change attendance zones — a process that began in September 2019.

The process was designed to reduce overcrowding as well as reduce the concentration of poverty at affected schools.

The dozens of draft plans presented last go-around invoked anger and frustration among many of the would-be affected families. Just as the process was churning toward a finish, plans were delayed in March 2020 in light of the COVID-19 outbreak, and then abandoned in September 2020.

“Given just the mere fluctuation, the challenge and the mental space that many need in order to do the formal process, right now, it's just not the time,” Atkins said Thursday. “We need to have a strategy… so that when that time comes, you won't have to get ready, you will already be ready.”

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Anna Bryson is the Henrico Citizen's education reporter and a Report for America corps member. Make a tax-deductible donation to support her work, and RFA will match it dollar for dollar.