We support strong educational opportunities for all students and respect the desire of Everton families to seek the best possible outcomes for their children. However, rezoning Everton into the McIntosh High School and J.C. Booth Middle School districts would create significant long-term concerns for educational quality, enrollment sustainability, and district planning.

The petition argues that these schools currently have available capacity. However, available capacity does not mean there would be no impact. McIntosh High School and J.C. Booth Middle School are highly regarded schools precisely because of the educational environment they currently maintain. Increasing enrollment inevitably affects class sizes, student-to-teacher ratios, traffic congestion, access to counselors, extracurricular participation, parking, scheduling, and individualized academic attention.

A school operating below absolute maximum capacity is not the same as a school operating at its optimal educational standard. Once enrollment increases begin, reversing overcrowding and strained resources becomes extremely difficult and costly.

Additionally, rezoning based primarily on the fact that one school cluster is perceived as “better ranked” creates an unsustainable precedent for the county. School zoning should be based on balanced long-term planning, infrastructure, geographic consistency, and sustainable resource allocation — not competitive movement toward higher-performing districts whenever seats appear available.

Families throughout Fayette County contribute tax dollars to public education. No individual community can reasonably claim entitlement to another district solely because of rankings or convenience. If rankings alone become justification for rezoning, similar requests could continue across the county indefinitely, destabilizing enrollment planning for all schools involved.

There are also legitimate concerns regarding the representation of support on the petition itself. Because this is a highly localized zoning issue, public input should primarily reflect the voices of current residents directly affected by these changes. Signatures from individuals who no longer reside in the area or who live far outside the affected district do not accurately represent the current community impact.

This issue is not about excluding students or opposing families. It is about preserving educational quality, maintaining sustainable growth, protecting manageable class sizes, and ensuring that zoning decisions are made with long-term stability in mind rather than short-term capacity calculations.

We encourage the Board to prioritize balanced county-wide planning and protect the academic environments that families across Fayette County rely upon.