School board postpones zoning decision for new high school

Residents aren’t happy with any of the School Board of Manatee County’s three plans to rezone the district in preparation for the opening of North River High School in August 2019.

The board was set to make a final decision on rezoning at Tuesday night’s meeting. Board member Charlie Kennedy, who felt that not enough notice had been given, filed a motion to postpone a vote to a future meeting.

“My fear is that a lot of folks who are going to be impacted by this change are not even aware we’re having this conversation tonight, and we’re having a final approval tonight,” Kennedy said.

Those who spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting echoed Kennedy’s sentiment and said they were annoyed that such an important issue hadn’t reached much of the community.

“I feel like we get robocalls every week. It would’ve been nice to get a robocall about something this important,” one speaker said. “I’m not quite sure how the communication all worked. It seemed like we didn’t know about this and now there’s a final vote tonight, which seems really unfair, and I hope it’s postponed.”

Before Kennedy spoke out against a final vote, the board had filed a motion to go with Committee B’s proposal. Ultimately, the board agreed to hold a public workshop on rezoning high schools and middle schools in February.

Superintendent Diana Greene said the options were originally designed to alleviate three overcrowded schools. About 300 students each will be transferred to North River High from Palmetto, Braden River and Lakewood Ranch high schools.

The zoning changes are also meant to balance socioeconomic numbers and ensure diversity across the district. However, parents fear that it will disrupt their commutes and their communities.

“I calculated both distance and time from my home address to Lakewood Ranch High School and to North River,” one East Manatee resident said. “The distance doubled and the time increased by two-thirds, making a commute in one direction more than 20 minutes.”

Other parents said that they looked forward to their children going to the same high schools they went to and that the zoning changes might not make that possible for them.

“I know, Dr. Greene, you’ve said that it would be a nightmare to rezone this entire county, but that’s probably what needs to be done,” said Rachel Kenzior, who worked on Committee A to form one of the proposals.

But Greene said that would only add further time delays and cause frustration for even more Manatee residents.

“One gentleman said there will be no good plan. If we redistrict this entire district, if they think these three plans aren’t to their liking, we’ll just have 20 plans not to anyone’s liking because our district is unique,” Greene said. “We have a river that comes right down the middle of it. We have schools out west, schools out east. It would be great if we could have everybody in perfect neighborhood boxes and just say that’s the school they’re going to go to.”

Board Chairman Scott Hopes said he previously had a discussion with Dr. Greene about rezoning the entire high school district.

“It is very challenging redrawing those lines,” Greene said. “Redistricting is one part of a superintendent’s lives that they wish they never have to do because it’s painful.”

Hopes said he will meet once more with Greene and the deputy superintendent of instructional services to review the comments from Tuesday’s public hearing.

Vice Chairman Gina Messenger suggested that the board put out a notice in the form of a phone call to parents in the affected areas sometime before the next school board meeting, which may have to be held at a different location due to an expected increase in attendance.

This story was originally published January 9, 2018 at 10:04 PM with the headline "School board postpones zoning decision for new high school."