A committee has charted more than 26 tentative plans and narrowed the choices to two expected to be presented Monday to the school board.
By: Amanda Bok
Two possible redistricting maps that could determine which students will attend which schools beginning in the fall are expected to be presented to the Board of Education Monday.
The board is scheduled to meet at 8 p.m. in the high school cafeteria. The meeting will allow for public comment.
Superintendent Sam Stewart then will review the maps and make a recommendation to the board on June 18. The public will have an opportunity to give its views before the board votes on a final plan that same night.
A district Redistricting Committee has been working on ways to redraw the township’s elementary school sending districts since January.
The new sending districts will be put into effect in fall 2002 for the 2002-2003 school year, when all elementary schools will convert from K-4 back to K-5 and a new elementary school, to be located on the corner of Route 130 and Deans Rhode Hall Road will open.
Redistricting will primarily affect elementary school students because middle school students will go to one of two schools, and high school students will continue to attend the high school, which will have an addition completed by fall 2003. A separate committee has been formed to decide the sending zones for middle school.
The committee has charted more than 26 tentative plans since January and narrowed the choices to two plans expected to be presented Monday to the school board.
Earlier this month, committee members presented each of the more than two dozen proposals to the community and explained how and why each plan did or did not meet redistricting guidelines.
The complete, unedited committee presentation of those maps is being shown on channel 28 daily.
Redistricting guidelines included allowing balanced enrollment and room for growth; keeping neighborhoods together as much as possible; maximizing the number of students who walk to school while minimizing the time students spend on a bus; keeping special education students in the same building for at least two years; complying with the regulations of the Office of Equal Educational Opportunities, which dictates that all schools have a mixed ethnic breakdown; and trying to allow current third-graders the option of staying in their present schools when they enter fifth grade in two years.
The committee also tried to achieve a mixed economic breakdown in all schools.
According to committee members, at least 20 percent of students from each elementary school will be moved to another building to allow room for fifth-graders.
Send comments or questions to: Redistricting Committee, c/o Board of Education, P.O. Box 181, 4 Executive Drive, Monmouth Junction, NJ 08852.