The County School Board has proposed a redistricting plan that moves 1096 students to new schools and rewrites the school district lines on the map.  According to the agendas published on the Chesterfield Country School Board website this item was on the agenda for October 9th, 2018 at a 3pm work session.  The email to the community that announced this proposed plan was sent dated October 4th, 2018.

There was an open meeting with parents to discuss this plan dated October 23rd 2018 and October 30th 2018.

This has raised the following concerns for me:

 1)    When was the idea for this redistricting initially proposed?  There was a plan sent to the public before it appeared on the agenda for the school board even though the plan was dated for the 9th October.  Have there been discussions on this subject that have not been shared?  There were discussions in 2016, however, the only reference I can find for more recent discussions was the announcement on the 4th October.

2)    Why is this plan being rushed through, many of the parents myself included requested that rather than this being a 9-month plan can it be extended to a 24-month plan to allow for the community to fully review and consider responses?  This was rejected outright by Robert Thompson during the October 29th meeting.

3)    Why are the lines being redistricted in the way they are?  The school board talks about cleaner lines on the map [2] however there is no indication of a significant cleaning of boundaries on the proposal.

4)    The board says in their proposal they wish to “create neighborhood schools” but the new district plan doesn’t accomplish this, Woodlake will be split between two schools, Brandermill will have the same.

5)    Why is it that during the meeting we were informed that “The numbers we see will be refined in phase 2 which will be coming later”?  Essentially the implication here is that we are having meetings and an upcoming vote by the school board for an incomplete plan that has more still to come, without giving the community time to fully review and evaluate with all the relevant information available to them.

6)    What is the justification for all new developments being moved into a very well-established school, whilst moving existing students to other schools?  Wouldn’t the more sensible plan be to move all the new students, in the new developments, into the new schools?

 During the meeting the overwhelming opinion by the parents in attendance was, we bought a home in this neighborhood specifically because of the school we wished our children to attend.  The School Board dismissed these arguments and opinions out of hand. 

My goals would be as follows:

·      Delay the redistricting vote until all information has been provided to the community and they have been given ample time to review and address any concerns.

·      Provide a full and complete timeline on how this plan first came to the board and the development process behind it.  Along with naming the people that drove the plan, since there may be questions of conflicts of interest.

·      Allow for a neutral third party to come and listen to the concerns of the community and the school board and determine if this is the best for the children and the School Board.  This is to help avoid any potential conflict of interest regarding external parties.

·      Extend the plan to 24 months to allow parents to fully consider their options and decide what is best for their children.

 From what we have seen so far, there is a lot of talk about what the Board must do to rebalance and clean the lines on the map, there has been little to no talk from the board about what is best for the students themselves.  This is relating to young children entering the school system for the first time, which is a highly disruptive and difficult period for many children at the best of times, adding a rushed redistricting plan into the mix that will result in adding more disruption and confusion to their young minds is going to be highly detrimental to a great many of their educational needs.