THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407080281
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
IT WAS THE mid-1980s in Virginia Beach, and the town was booming. Housing developments were exploding. Enrollment in city schools was growing by 2,000 or more students a year, causing some school buildings to bulge at the seams.
Parents who bought homes based on the schools that served their neighborhoods could no longer rest assured that their children would attend those schools.
Now things are slowing down in Virginia Beach, thanks to an unsure water supply and the uncertain fate of the city's large military complex, Oceana Naval Air Station.
Meanwhile, in her sister city, Chesapeake, things are just heating up.
New neighborhoods are springing from fallow farm fields. The city is attractive to young families because the schools are good, and they can buy better houses and bigger lots for their precious dollars than in other heavily populated Hampton Roads cities.
Chesapeake now is in the grip of the same dilemma Virginia Beach has faced for so long - school overcrowding.
To help relieve some of the pressure, a new high school will open in September 1996 in Great Bridge, the area that has experienced the greatest share of the city's student growth recently. Hickory High will become the city's sixth high school, and the first new high school (as opposed to a replacement building for an existing high school) to open in 25 years.
To accommodate the new school, the School Board now is considering its first major revision of attendance zones in five years.
If the School Board accepts rezoning proposals advanced by school officials late last month, the rezoning would affect as many as 2,800 students attending Deep Creek and Great Bridge high schools and 2,200 students attending Great Bridge middle schools North and South.
On the middle school level, both Great Bridge schools would become traditional middle schools in September 1996, serving grades six through eight. Now, Great Bridge Middle North serves sixth and seventh grades, while Great Bridge Middle South serves eighth and ninth grades.
Ninth-graders would be moved to Great Bridge and Hickory high schools.
Great Bridge Middle North would become a feeder school for Hickory High, while Great Bridge Middle South would become a feeder school for Great Bridge High.
On the high school level, school officials propose moving a portion of the Deep Creek High School zone - an area east of Dominion Boulevard and George Washington Highway, and west of Shillelagh Road that has about 150 high school students now - to the new Hickory High.
Lenard Wright, program administrator for planning and development, said the move would relieve overcrowding at Deep Creek and make some of the bus routes shorter.
Three neighborhoods anchored in the Great Bridge area - Bridgefield, Great Bridge Gardens and Caroon Farms - also are in question. They could either be moved to the new high school or left in the Great Bridge High zone, depending on what the School Board decides to do.
It is those neighborhoods that are likely to cause concern during rezoning discussions, set to begin in earnest later this summer.
``People identify with their high school,'' Wright said. ``It's difficult to give up their allegiance.''
One student, who graduated from Great Bridge High this year but who has younger sisters and a brother who would be rezoned to Hickory High under the proposals, said she didn't see much of a problem with the plans.
``We think it's fine except that such a large area will be going to Hickory and such a small area will be going to Great Bridge,'' said Amy Garman.
Garman said her brother and sisters ``kind of wanted to go to Hickory anyway.''
School officials plan to ask the School Board to set up public hearings on the proposals to see how other students and parents feel. Wright said he probably also would go speak to community groups and PTAs about the plans.
The plan would give seniors affected by zone changes the option of staying in their high schools for their last year. And residents should have time to adjust, Wright said.
``The attendance zones won't even change until 1996.''
But this likely will not be the last of the rezoning for Chesapeake schools in the near future.
If growth continues on its present course, Great Bridge, Deep Creek and the new Hickory high schools will continue to be pressed by overcrowding, Wright said. Great Bridge High will continue to serve many densely populated areas of the city, and the new Hickory High will serve some high growth areas.
A new high school, planned for the Grassfield area of the city by the turn of the century, may provide some relief.
``People just like Chesapeake, that's all I can say,'' Wright said. MEMO: School officials are only in the preliminary stages of talking about
redrawing attendance zones. But if you have questions, you can call
Lenard Wright, program administrator for planning and development, or
the school system's ombudsman, Tom Cupitt, at 547-0153.
ILLUSTRATION: PAI/Staff [Map]
CHANGING HIGH SCHOOL BOUNDARIES
KEYWORDS: SCHOOL ATTENDANCE ZONES by CNB