Little Mountain elementary parent Missy Wooten summed up the bustling activity around her last night in Mid-Carolina High’s cafeteria after the district presented plans to redraw school assignment lines.

“You’re not going to make everyone happy,” Wooten said after the presentation part of the community forum, while talking with other Little Mountain parents.

But the district tried its best.

After Matt Cropper of the data gathering system Cropper GIS greeted the approximately 150 people gathered in the high school’s lunchroom, he went over the night’s forum agenda:

1. Learn redistricting options.

2. Review plans shown on large colorful maps conveniently located in four areas of the room and ask questions to committee members wearing blue nametags.

3. Complete a questionnaire and drop it in a feedback box.

Since January, groups in the Mid-Carolina community met as a “steering committee,” working together with professional data collectors to find the best way to redraw school lines.

There is currently a population imbalance at the three Mid-Carolina area schools. Prosperity-Rikard Elementary is overcrowded and neighboring schools Pomaria-Garmany and Little Mountain have extra space after recent building expansions.

“This committee’s objective is to redraw attendance boundaries to accommodate for the additional space at Pomaria-Garmany and Little Mountain elementary,” said Cropper.

And the community is helping too.

Volunteers, like mothers Sherry Underwood and Marilyn Brooks, have made all six redistricting meetings since the first of the year. They, and the professional researchers, geared their work within the following guidelines set by the school board to best serve students:

• Where possible, children should be assigned to the nearest school to minimize travel time and promote the concept of neighborhood schools.

• Optimally, stay with pure feeder zones, meaning elementary schools are not split between middle schools, and middle school students are not split between high schools.

• Consider attendance boundaries to minimize the number of students that are affected though the redistricting.

• Try not to split neighborhoods into different attendance zones.

• Define boundaries using main geographical features like main roads, highways and things of that nature, when possible.

In the end, the committee came up with options A and B.

OPTION A — Pomaria-Garmany’s district extends southward a bit more than in option B. Also, there is less spill from Prosperity-Rikard’s district into the Little Mountain area.

Number of students impacted: 126

“Option A would be the best choice right now,” said Prosperity-Rikard’s Principal Tim Lyden. “For Prosperity-Rikard, it’s really about the same. I’m just looking at option A because it affects less students at Pomaria-Garmany.”

Under option A, 27 Pomaria-Garmany students would be moved to Little Mountain versus option B which sends 32 Pomaria-Garmany students there.

OPTION B — Little Mountain attendance area extends further north than in option A, and Prosperity-Rikard’s district extends further eastward into the Little Mountain area.

Number of students impacted: 129

A parent group from Little Mountain favored a slightly-altered option B.

Jim and Susan Delk were concerned about students who have to switch schools right before starting fifth grade after being with friends since kindergarten.

Susan Delk remembered when a high school changed districts when she was in school. The district gave upcoming seniors the option to stay at the school for their last year.

“That’s what they need to do,” Delk suggested.

“Explore the possibility of giving them an option,” Jim Delk asked of the district.

Missy Wooten, who talked with the Delks, wanted choice for younger students too.

She was concerned for kindergartners adjusting to their first year of school and then having to switch schools for first grade.

If her child’s district is changed for the ’10-’11 school year, Wooten wants the option to start her child in kindergarten at the new school in the ’09-’10 year to adjust.

“If they’re going to be redistricting and make them go there anyway, let them go ahead and start,” says Wooten.

But of the two options at hand, some wanted a third.

NOT HAPPY

One group of teachers wondered why the district pulled Pomaria-Garmany into the discussion at all.

If the overcrowding at Prosperity-Rikard was simply moved to Little Mountain, the space there would be well-utilized and less children would be affected, said one.

Others wondered about the district’s motives in the process, saying race, and a race-gap in testing, played a role.

Cropper answered those concerns, saying the committee threw out the option to exclude Pomaria-Garmany from the attendance redrawing. Leaving the school out of the process would mean overstepping the guideline of proximity, which keeps students at schools near their home.

Not including Pomaria-Garmany in the picture would mean sending many students in the Prosperity area to Little Mountain, even though many live right near the Prosperity-Rikard school.

“You could only affect two schools, but in order to bring these Little Mountain numbers up (to an ideal capacity), the lines (for a Little Mountain district) have to go really close to Prosperity-Rikard,” said Cropper.

As far as shifting lines to move skin color groups among schools, Cropper said the committee never considered how the redistricting would affect race.

“Demographics have not been a part of the criteria from the start,” said Cropper.

MUCH TYPING TO DO

Assistant Superintendent for Operations Jim Suber said he thought the meeting went well, but that there is still work to do.

Everyone who signed in at the forum received a questionnaire asking questions like “Which option do you prefer?” and had space to write pros and cons.

And the comments from the public play a big part in the next step.

Every comment will be read, compiled and given to the committee, said Suber.

“Not only do we need to hear what you like, we need to hear what you don’t like,” Suber said. “It basically will drive their decision-making process. The thing I think we need to emphasize here is that these two plans are simply rough drafts. The primary purpose in having this meeting and seeking input from the community was to give the committee the things they potential need to consider changing.”

“It’s wide open,” said committee volunteer Marilyn Brooks. “We just needed comments to know how the community feels about it.”

“We might have to come up with another option,” said fellow committee member Sherry Underwood.

NEXT STEP

The committee’s redistricting recommendation will be presented to the school board on June 22 during the regularly scheduled board meeting.

The board is expected to vote on the recommendation during its July 27 board meeting.

No redistricting changes will happen until the 2010-2011 school year.