THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 8, 1996 TAG: 9606080377
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: 89 lines
When River Road Middle School opens for business in August 1997, almost everything in the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools will change.
For the first time, the district will have more than one school serving students in its middle grades. Also for the first time, students will be grouped in separate buildings by grades K to 5, 6 to 8, and 9 to 12.
Most students will attend schools that have either just been built or have been rebuilt and expanded since this year. Even though new classroom space will have been added, most schools will be nearly filled to capacity.
But before any of these changes can happen, the School Board has to decide which students will go to which schools, and how to get them there as quickly and cheaply as possible.
A three-member School Board committee studying the issue has better tools than were available when district lines were redrawn in 1990. At a preliminary meeting this week, board members were introduced to a computer program that can map out districts in full color after some numbers like racial balance and school size are plugged in.
But officials don't expect the task to be much easier than it was six years ago, when districting ideas were discussed by pushing pins into a map on the wall.
The goals are roughly the same as they were the last go-round, officials said this week:
Provide a racial mix at each school that mirrors the county population as closely as possible.
Put the right number of students in each school, leaving more room in schools whose districts are most likely to grow.
Develop bus routes that pick up children at reasonable times and get them off the bus as quickly as possible while meeting North Carolina efficiency standards to get the most out of state funding.
Set school starting times that help bus schedules and aren't too rough on students.
Send children to schools that are closest to their own neighborhoods.
School officials said these goals are difficult to meet, and some of them may conflict.
For instance, the district population is roughly half black and half white, which board members said would be a good mix at each school.
Making sure school populations reflect the community's diversity ``is certainly one of the priorities,'' Superintendent Joe Peel said Friday.
But as board member Robert Thorne pointed out Wednesday, the population is not evenly spread throughout the county. Enrollment figures show growing lopsided populations at several schools - with the scales tilting toward black students at P.W. Moore, Pasquotank and Sheep-Harney elementaries, and toward white students at Central, Northside and Weeksville.
Six of the district's eight elementaries have proportions of black or white students that exceed the limits set in 1990. At some schools, those rules were violated in the first year, and the imbalance is growing.
``This didn't happen overnight,'' redistricting committee Chairman Pat McDowell said Wednesday. ``Each year, things seemed to get more and more in one direction or another.''
Board members will have to weigh diversity against what many community members consider a higher priority - sending children to the school that's closest to home.
Bus routes are another big issue. In 1990, the district set a goal to pick up no student before 7 a.m. But district transportation officials said some students from the Weeksville area now are on the bus by 6 a.m., and some spend up to 90 minutes riding each way.
Committee members on Wednesday asked Mike Ludden, a cost clerk at the bus garage, to run several scenarios through the computer districting program so they can be discussed next week.
First, officials will try to determine the capacity at each school. Then Ludden will procure maps of what districts could look like with black-white or white-black racial mixes of 55 percent to 45 percent, 60 percent to 40 percent and 65 percent to 35 percent.
Eventually, the board will settle on an ideal ratio and an allowable range outside that proportion. Within that range, officials will try to create a bus route and schedule that meets state efficiency requirements and puts as little strain on riders as possible.
The committee will meet twice next week and plans to report to the School Board by its July meeting. Officials have said they'd like to have an idea of new district lines by this fall so the community has time to prepare for the change in 1997.
Pasquotank County embarked on a $22 million building program last year to keep pace with rapid growth in the county, where the student population has increased from about 5,500 in 1990-91 to about 6,300 in 1995-96.
That kind of growth makes keeping up - and planning - a difficult chore.
``We just don't have that much excess capacity,'' McDowell said Wednesday. ``It's going to be frustrating, because we won't be able to do what we really want to do.
``Six years ago, none of us could have ever dreamed that we'd be where we are today, doing what we're doing.'' by CNB