Redistricting maps may undergo
review before board grants approval
By:Krzysztof Scibiorski
The Board of Education and the public might not be able to review the district’s final redistricting plan during the board’s Jan. 14 work meeting, as previously announced.
The board had indicated the schedule for implementing the new redistricting plan included acceptance of a plan at Monday night’s meeting, and a vote on the matter during its Jan. 28 regular meeting.
"We had eight and a half hours of passionate input at the two meetings, and received upwards of 75 e-mails on the subject," said district Superintendent Robert Gulick. "It’s possible that the committee will need more time to relook and rethink some ideas before making its recommendation."
At the meetings held Dec. 19 and Jan. 2, parents presented their comments on the committee’s plan that would see all seven of the elementary schools remain K-5 institutions, with all of the district’s sixth-graders housed in an addition at the Auten Road School.
The plan reversed the district’s long-standing goal of establishing a fifth and sixth grade intermediate school at Auten Road School. According to Dr. Gulick, 12 out of 18 committee members voted in favor of the proposal with six, including himself, voting against it during the committee’s last meeting on Dec. 10.
"As a committee, we are challenging ourselves to have very solid and detailed information supporting whatever decision we reach. The public needs to see this," Dr. Gulick said of the committee’s upcoming presentation to the board.
Hundreds of parents attended both of the public meetings, with many voicing their opposition to the new plan’s effect on particular neighborhoods or with the overall abandonment of the intermediate school idea. Parents from the Weybridge and Williamsburg Square developments have been particularly vocal in opposing the plan 46 of their children who are currently attending Triangle School would be bused 6.5 miles to the Woodfern School.
Others claimed that the committee’s recommendation went against the letter of the district’s Oct. 2000 $23 million referendum that paid for the Auten Road School addition, the high school expansion and "12 people are overturning what we all voted for in the referendum," as parent Tony Cianciola at the Jan. 2 meeting said, referring to the 12 committee members who voted in favor of the current redistricting plan.
However, several parents voiced their support for the committee’s proposal. One mother told those assembled on Jan. 2 that, "My daughter really wants to stay at her elementary school for fifth grade."