DATE: Thursday, September 11, 1997          TAG: 9709110674

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   58 lines

BRACE FOR FREQUENT SCHOOL RESHUFFLING, SUFFOLK WARNS FAMILIES

This might put a crimp in this year's school T-shirt sales, but here's a heads-up, anyway: A lot of elementary students will be switching schools next year.

Rezoning, a dreaded thought for students, parents and school administrators, will be fairly widespread to accommodate the addition of this growing city's 17th public school, the new ``central'' elementary school to be built at the southern end of Nansemond Parkway, Superintendent Joyce H. Trump said Wednesday. The new school is scheduled to open in a year, by September 1998.

A rezoning committee already has begun groundwork for the changes. Melinda J. Boone, coordinator of pupil personnel and testing who heads the committee, proposed a timetable that calls for meeting this month and next with school principals and groups representing parents and teachers, before presenting an initial rezoning plan to the School Board in February.

A public-comment period will follow in March, and the board will vote on the rezoning in April.

The new school will alleviate crowding, notably at Nansemond Parkway Elementary up the street, which is surrounded by a field of mobile classrooms. But as some students are shifted to the new school, others may be shifted into the vacated spots, to best make use of available space and keep students as close as possible to their homes, Trump said.

``The rezoning may very well touch every elementary school,'' she said. ``Groups of students - I don't think you're going to see the major population of a school shifting.''

School officials will try to spare students who were rezoned this past year when Oakland Elementary reopened after renovation and a kindergarten-only school was opened in the Florence Bowser Elementary building. That was made part of the planning last year, so children wouldn't be switched twice in two years, Trump said.

School officials also are trying to avoid the protests from parents that occurred last year when they first proposed a limited rezoning, then expanded it later in the process. Better to figure on a wider rezoning first, then cut back if they can, Trump said.

Last year was the first of what school officials warn will be almost-annual attendance-zone changes, a relatively foreign concept in Suffolk. But families with school-age kids should learn to expect it, with 5 percent to 7 percent annual enrollment growth in recent years, almost 100 mobile classrooms in use, scads of new dwellings going up, and a request before City Council seeks $142.2 million in construction and renovations - including four new schools - in the next six years.

Enrollment as of Wednesday was 10,896 students, less than the predicted 11,000 or more and not quite a 1 percent increase from last year. But Trump said students enroll in city schools all year long as new homes are completed and occupied. Officials also expect a bump at the semester break halfway through the year, when families often wait to transfer their children.

``In Suffolk, they used to say when you rezoned that's going to be it for four or five years,'' Trump said.

``That's not the way it's going to be anymore. There could be rezoning every year.''

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu