Henrico Redistricting: A Wyndham Forest Parent’s Perspective
April 20, 2009 - 4:52 pm
By Ron DiFrango
As many know, the county in which I live in is going through school re-districting. The initial phase of the project required countless un-paid hours for community volunteers who poured over the data presented and created 2 pairings. The process is documented here. The community I live in [Wyndham Forest] is affected by the outcome of these meetings and the resulting recommendation of Pairing 2. I believe that in addition to our communities concerns with Pairing 2, that Pairing 1 is better for Henrico County as a whole. Here are the points that I believe support this claim:
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Pairing 1 does a much better job across the county of keeping school communities together. Pairing 2 has 60 percent more splits (cases where students from one school go to different schools at the next level) between elementary and middle school. This is huge. We all know how tough middle school is and the more often children make the transition with their friends the better. Pairing 2 also has one more split than Pairing 1 between middle and high school.
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A majority of the redistricting committee voted for Pairing 1. It’s only because they decided to have each subcommittee vote separately that Pairing 2 was recommended. The high school committee was strong for Pairing 1. The other two supported Pairing 2 by one vote each.
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I suspect Pairing 1 will result in much less busing of students. Pairing 2 has too many cases where a community near one school is sent a long distance to another. A recent school bus accident reinforces how important it is to minimize the amount of time our children spend in transit. The fewer miles driven by either students or county buses also saves money and is beneficial to the environment.
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I suspect that analysis will show that Pairing 1 supports true walk-ability better. Walking to school promotes good health for our children and a better environment.
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Pairing 2 does not necessarily do a better job of balancing school enrollment and student capacity numbers. There are some cases where that is true and somewhere Pairing 1 is better. For example, Pairing 1 helps the new high school get to an efficient enrollment — one the administration says is large enough to offer all the student programs and classes — sooner than Pairing 2.
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Pairing 1 might allow the county to put off having to build another elementary school in the Far West End so soon. In Pairing 2, Colonial Trail starts off over capacity in 2010 and jumps to 121 percent in 2012 an 132 percent in 2013. In Pairing 1, Colonial Trail does not even get to full capacity until 2012. Delaying construction of another elementary school would save county taxpayers money, maybe make resources available for some projects in eastern Henrico and delay another round of elementary redistricting.
In addition to these claims, the following is the effect that Pairing 2 has on our particular community:
- In Pairing 2 does not take into account one of the most natural and recognizable boundaries in Henrico County I-295. By having the students of Wyndham Forest attend the new high school Pairing 2 is clearly ignoring this boundary, as Wyndham Forest would be the only community north of 295 not attending Deep Run.
- We would be the only community north of I-295/I-64 going to the new high school in Pairing 2. There are some communities to our east that are also north of I-295, not just boxed in by both highways.
- In Pairing 2 our children will be moved from a school that is approximately 1 mile and within walking distance to our neighborhood [sidewalks included] to one which is approximately 6 miles away and clearly not walk-able.
- Given our proximity to Deep Run High School, the track team utilizes our neighborhood for training purposes.
It is great to see our community rallying to support the effort to this effort. I think during this process we need to keep the following in mind:
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Stay positive. Don’t go negative.
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Don’t bash other neighborhoods or people. It doesn’t help and only motivates others to work against us.
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Don’t push the plan with the idea of dragging other neighborhoods with us. That’s already happening to us and we know how that feels.
I am still confident we will get there, but we all need to work really hard together.
You make a number of arguments for why Wyndham Forest should stay at Deep Run HS. Those arguments are the same for many other neighborhoods where athletes run through the subdivisions, where kids find nice walking paths, and where major thoroughfares exist.
Your point about Pairing 2 having more splits seems well-reasoned, until you consider that each time a split is eliminated, you are actually disrupting a current feeder pattern. Although you may think that is better for the county, others do not agree. The predominant preference is for keeping boundaries at each grade level the same as they are now. Kids have friends in their immeidate neighborhoods, and the redistricting guidelines preserve neighborhoods. Reducing the splits can cause other problems — such as the Deep Run Park neighborhoods that would move to Tucker under Pairing 1 — that reduces a split, but also eliminates a walking neighborhood.
You do have a good point on the over-crowding at Colonial Trail. However, that is an elementary school issue that will be addressed by sending some of the kids to Shady Grove, and others to Nuckol’s Farm, Twin Hickory, or wherever there is space. The number of splits will increase, or decrease, depending on what HCPS staff can find as the best solution at the elementary level as they work on additional adjustments in the next week. Alternatively, send the Colonial Trail 5th graders to Short Pump MS which is under-utilized. In fact, we should be looking at re-allocating grade levels across all the middle and high schools, because there is a lot of excess capacity in the middle schools. This could help delay building another West End HS for 5 years.
Maybe if we authorize the school administration to be creative problem solvers, they will do better work for us and save us money. I know they want to be creative — they are smart people. They just need our encouragement. But that is a digression from what I really want to focus on, which is a clear statement of the root cause of this whole issue, and why Wyndham Forest should own being part of the solution, rather than trying to push others into different schools so they can stay at Deep Run.
Here is the core issue:
Deep Run is already over capacity, and there will be 23% more high school aged students in the current Deep Run HS boundary by 2015 (this is simple math based on the HCPS census tract data).
The population boom is led by Wyndham Forest, which will have the largest percentage increase of HS aged students in the entire current Deep Run HS district — a 118% increase! Compare this to all of Wyndham, which will have only a 20% increase, and areas south of Broad that are being pushed out of Deep Run HS under both plans, where HS aged student populations are going to decrease by 10% in the next 7 years.
It takes a detailed review of the maps and census tables to really understand that the cause of redistricting is over-development in your area, and the solution should be owned locally, in your area. It is not reasonable to expect other areas of the county to shuffle around so you can stay at Deep Run HS for another year or two. And that is all you have, because the development to your immediate west will surely push you out of Deep Run HS.
I will get deep into the tall grass on this, based on my observation of the redistricting process and how the redistricting committee made certain decisions and avoided certain options. However, in the end, the solution is well-reasoned and defensible, as long as you agree that your own population explosion is causing the problem, and it is your problem to own and solve locally.
The Wyndham Forest resident who wrote this opinion piece wants to stay at Deep Run HS. The only way to do that is to push other communities out of Deep Run HS. That was done with Wellsley, Church Run, Barrington, and Windsor Place, which put Godwin over capacity. So some of Colonies was moved out of Godwin and into Deep Run. From what I hear, The Colonies had a mixed view on this — some are OK with moving, others want to stay at Godwin. The Sadler Road area in Innsbruck was also pushed out of Deep Run HS. Still, Deep Run would go over capacity in 2013 unless more neighborhoods are moved out.
At that point, it comes down to Wyndham Forest moving to the New HS versus keeping Colonies at Godwin, which would trigger a shuffle that would have been disruptive for Canterbury-Kingsley, Pemberton Corridor, and Crestview. Those neighborhoods united and pushed back — their argument was that established neighborhoods with negligible student population growth should not have to shuffle around when the issue is being caused by over-development north of I-295. That push back was successful.
Alternatively, had Windsor Place – Barrington – Church Run been moved directly from Deep Run to Tucker, the shuffle could have been avoided, room for the Colonies at Godwin would have been opened up, Wyndham Forest could stay at Deep Run, and the disruption would have been minimized. But for some reason, even though the rental properties directly north of Church Run and Barrington and Windsor Place were slated for Tucker under one plan, the affluent neighborhoods across the street were considered for Tucker. Some argued that it would have resulted in a small split of Pocahontas children attending Tucker, but that was specious — the split was larger than several splits in the current plans under consideration. Regardless, that option was never debated.
So it comes down to Pairing 2, which moves Wyndham Forest out of Deep Run and into the New HS, or Pairing 1, which moves the neighborhoods west and north of Deep Run Park out of Godwin and into Tucker. Both neighborhoods are in walking distance. The Deep Run Park neighborhoods walk to Godwin — there are paths through the grass along Ridgefield Parkway, and through back yards behind Godwin HS. Meanwhile Wyndham Forest students don’t walk to Deep Run HS — Nuckols Road is a dangerous intersection with dump trucks barreling through the Twin Hickory intersection. The students ride in cars — bus usage is low. This was documented by the external consultant and HCPS staff, and known by the committee when they voted. The results were close, but did favor the Godwin community that is more established, and put the disruption back to the Deep Run community where growth is out-pacing school capacity (and which is near where the New HS is being built, the HS that is being built to relieve the crowding in the first place).
In the end, it came down to 4 issues which, in combination, moved you out of Deep Run:
–Your area is over-crowded.
–Established neighborhoods held firm and pushed the committee to follow the guidelines
–The committee avoided moving some affluent neighborhoods to Tucker
–It is inevitable that you must move — the development to your immediate west forces you out by 2015, regardless of what you hope for in the current redistricting effort.
It all comes down to pushing the solution to the space where the problem is being created.
Your areas is the epicenter of the problem.
You should own that and be open to being part of the solution by moving to the New HS.
To do otherwise gives the appearance that you are unaware of your rate of reproduction.
A typo, paragraph 10, the word NOT was omitted:
But for some reason, even though the rental properties directly north of Church Run and Barrington and Windsor Place were slated for Tucker under one plan, the affluent neighborhoods across the street were NOT considered for Tucker.