Manatee County School Board comes close to decision on Orange Ridge, Rogers Garden attendance zones

MANATEE -- New attendance zones for central corridor Manatee County elementary schools will go up for approval by the Manatee County School Board next week, after the board took a closer look Tuesday at three proposals.

"What was really interesting was the consensus that these committees came to," Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Cynthia Saunders told the board.

Three committees were created last month to help the district redraw attendance zones to move Orange Ridge-Bullock students into surrounding schools. The district gave the committees a starting point, with most students going to Rogers Garden Elementary School, which has no attendance zone.

Daughtrey, Samoset, Oneco and Ballard will all be affected by creating a zone for

Rogers Garden and eliminating the Orange Ridge zone. The plan will take effect for the 2016-17 school year if approved by the board.

While the board took no action Tuesday, members appear to favor a map drawn by Committee C, which varies slightly from maps drawn by Committee A and Committee B.

The Committee C map leaves most students in Rogers, and attempts to clean up some of the area where Oneco's and Daughtrey's attendance zones intersect.

"It also sort of made more sense to have that butt up to our zone and make the zones more contiguous," said Pat Stream, a Committee C representative and the principal at Samoset. "There really wasn't any other reasoning."

That move wouldn't really affect the Rogers Garden or Orange Ridge situation, said Danny Lundeen, supervisor of student assignment. It's a net effect of moving about 42 students from one school to another.

Board member Bob Gause wanted to know if that change was suggested as a way to balance out demographics or transportation.

"None of that played a role in that other than that makes a nice clean box, or a rectangle," Superintendent Diana Greene said.

Committee C left in place a pocket of about nine students who live near the DeSoto Square mall as attending Rogers Garden. Transportation concerns were cited for those students and it was recommended they attend Oneco instead. Committee B also left those students at Rogers Garden.

As long as students are transported, board members seem willing to leave those nine students in the Rogers attendance zone.

Students in the Bullock program, which serves some of the highest-need students, will not be affected by the new zones. The superintendent is proposing to move the entire program to Rogers Garden.

None of the decisions are finalized. On April 12, Greene will bring one proposal before the board for a public hearing and a decision from the board. All parents and families affected by the board decision will get a letter telling them what their new attendance zone is and what options they have if they don't want to attend that school. The district is planning a special school-choice period for affected families. Staff decisions and location of prekindergarten programs are all also waiting until after the board takes action.

"We're waiting until after the board meeting until we make those decisions. It'll be contingent on the board," Saunders said.

Once the board has decided attendance zones, it will then discuss what to do with the Orange Ridge-Bullock site.

Meghin Delaney, education reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7081. Follow her on Twitter @MeghinDelaney.

This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 11:53 PM with the headline "Manatee County School Board comes close to decision on Orange Ridge, Rogers Garden attendance zones ."