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Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009

A painless school rezoning process has not been invented

If you want to get people riled up, all you have to do is convince the local school system to rezone which schools students must attend. It’s universal — it doesn’t matter the size of the community, it’s sophistication or the reasons for the rezoning, even if caused by the opening of a brand new school — there will be upset parents. That is particularly true in Houston County for a number of reasons.

The school system in Houston is bringing Veterans High School on line for the 2010-2011 school year. The system’s fifth high school, without a senior class, will have a student population of about 1,100. In subsequent years the school will hold about 1,300 students. Tuesday, concerned parents filled the Houston County High School Auditorium and many of them were not happy. To comply with U.S. Justice Department guidelines, the system must adhere to racial percentages that reflect the system’s black population, somewhere between 26 and 46 percent, depending on the school. While the reasons for creating the zoning map reflect the area’s population trends (fewer blacks in the southern end of the county) the issue is much more than race. In fact, race has little to do with the opposition to the rezoning. Houston County schools didn’t suffer the fissure districts in many other systems fell victim to during integration. There was little white flight to private institutions, something the district is quite proud of.

If you want a peek into the real reasons for opposing the rezoning there is no better place to look than McConnell-Talbert Stadium this Friday night. On one side of the stadium the red and black of the Warner Robins Demons will dominate. On the other side, blue will be the color of choice. The two schools have met in either regular season or playoffs games 51 times, and the big game atmosphere also serves as the state’s largest high school reunion. The two high schools had the city to themselves until 1991 when Houston County High School opened its doors to students. There was some gnashing of teeth then as well, but the southern edge of the city was expanding and many of the students zoned to HoCo were the offspring of new residents to an expanding city. Now the pie has to be split more than three ways. Old established red and blue neighborhoods have to be adjusted. While the system has done its best to lessen the impact, there is no way to make a rezoning process painless.

— Charles E. Richardson.

for the Editorial Board