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closeWhile the issue of creating zoning boundaries based on racial demographics heated up the first public discussion of new school zones in Houston County next school year, a number of parents demanded the zones focus more on proximity and community ties than fulfilling demographic requirements.
About 1,800 students in the county would be affected by the proposed zoning plans, said Stephen Thublin, assistant superintendent for finance and business operations. Roughly 1,000 will attend Veterans High School in its first year, and 500 to 600 additional high school students would be rezoned elsewhere. About 200 elementary and middle school students also will be rezoned.
The next zoning meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Nov. 19 in the Warner Robins High School theater.
One factor affecting the zoning maps is a requirement to comply with a court order dating back to the 1960s under the Justice Department, requiring zones to reflect the black population to enforce integration. Blacks make up 36 percent of the school system’s students, and Houston County has been fulfilling those requirements by remaining within 10 percentage points of that figure in its school zones, said Thublin.
Superintendent David Carpenter said the school system initially created a zoning map based on geographic boundaries and proximity. After calculating the number of students in each zone, the concentration of students was “so out of whack” it would not meet the criteria of the Justice Department or address the overcrowding in other high schools in Warner Robins.
Sherry Myers, 42, attended the first meeting with her son Jonathan, a second-grader at Perdue Primary School.
Jonathan wore a homemade sign that read, “Please let me go to school in my community.”
Because the Myerses live in the Royal Oaks subdivision in Kathleen, Jonathan is zoned to attend Perry High School in the future, while most of his friends nearby will stay at Houston County High School.
While high school is still years away for him, Myers said the changes would separate her son from his friends and community.
“They’re sending us to Perry, and we have no community ties to Perry,” she said.
Other parents are concerned about siblings going to different high schools next year. Chairman Tom Walmer said only rising seniors who are rezoned would be able to stay at their current schools. Allowances would not be made for younger siblings, which caused school overcrowding when the board made exceptions for them during its last rezoning effort in 2004.
Craig Taylor, 48, of Warner Robins, has a son who is a junior at Northside High School and a daughter who is a freshman there.
The Taylors have lived in the Northside High School district since 1980, but his daughter will be rezoned for Warner Robins High School next year. His son will be able to stay at Northside to finish his senior year.
“My biggest concern is, will the children be accepted from Northside to Warner Robins?” he said.
Bonaire resident Brad Schlenker, 43, has five children in Houston schools. The Schlenkers’ home in the Thompson Mill Road corridor is closest to the Veterans High site, but his elementary and middle school aged children will be rezoned for Warner Robins High School.
“How much effort has been made to keep kids close to the communities they live in?” Schlenker said.
After his children finish school at Bonaire elementary and middle schools, they will be part of a group of 185 students in the area who will go to a high school nine miles across town, he said.
“We’re in the military, we follow rules, but for the 10 percent being yanked from Bonaire Middle, that’s a foul,” Schlenker said. “It’s not a color thing. This is my friends, this is my community.”
To contact writer Andrea Castillo, call 256-9751.
Sound off Do you have something to say about the school rezoning issue? We want to hear it. E-mail your letters to awoolen@macon.com. Please include your name, address and phone number for verification.
If you go What: Houston County schools rezoning meeting When: 7 p.m. Nov. 19 Where: Warner Robins High School theater, 401 S. Davis Drive, Warner Robins More information: www.hcbe.net/zoning.aspx
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