THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 4, 1994 TAG: 9412020227
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 22 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
With little comment, the School Board on Monday night approved attendance zones for the new Hickory High School, scheduled to open in September 1996.
The vote was 8-0 in favor of a plan recommended by Superintendent C. Fred Bateman and his staff, which is intended to relieve crowding and control enrollment growth at Great Bridge High, while allowing elementary school students to remain with their peers through high school. Board member James Wheaton was absent.
The attendance zone shift means that a portion of the Deep Creek High School zone will shift to Great Bridge High in 1996.
The Great Bridge Gardens, Bridgefield and Caroon Farms neighborhoods will switch from Great Bridge High to the new Hickory High in 1996.
Also at that time, ninth-graders at Great Bridge Middle School South will be moved to Great Bridge or Hickory High schools, depending on the attendance zone in which they live. Great Bridge middle schools North and South then will become traditional middle schools, with sixth through eighth grades.
Students zoned for Great Bridge High will attend Great Bridge Middle South, while students zoned for Hickory High will attend Great Bridge Middle North, which will be renamed Hickory Middle. Eventually a replacement school for Great Bridge Middle North will be built on the Hickory High site.
The board's decision comes after several months of deliberation, in which very little public comment was heard. That was unusual, considering that attendance zone shifts in most communities tend to be controversial.
The parents who did comment mostly just asked the School Board to adopt boundaries that allowed their children to remain with the same peers from elementary school through high school.
Lenard Wright, the school system's program administrator for planning and development, speculated that the lack of public comment was because parents and students may like the idea of a brand new school.
``You're going to be providing state-of-the-art equipment,'' Wright said. by CNB