The Board of Education will host tonight what many hope will be the final public hearing on the Oakdale High School redistricting process.But others, who say their communities have been out of the mix until the most recent options were created, don't want the process rushed. They fear the school board will make its decision while families are on vacation and PTAs are dormant.
Residents will have another chance to offer comments on eight redistricting plans -- two base plans that each have three variations.
School board members have said their goal is to make a final decision at the Aug. 26 meeting, just two days after schools open for the year.
"They went and changed the options and included areas that weren't included before," Marj Kiger said Monday. Kiger is a resident in the Green Valley/Monrovia area.
Children in Kiger's neighborhood have historically gone to Urbana High School. Several of the new options call for her neighborhood to go to Linganore High, a change she said residents are not taking well.
A boundary line for Urbana /Linganore has been changed from Weller Road to Fingerboard Road, Kiger said, which directly affects her family.
Ray Barnes is executive director of facilities services for Frederick County Public Schools. He said Tuesday the change was to address a request from school board members to further reduce enrollment at Urbana High, which was 8 percent over capacity last year.
"A number of plans over the process have shifted Green Valley students to Linganore High," Barnes said. "What's new is perhaps the number of students or neighborhoods being moved."
Barnes and school board president Jean Smith said they have received many e-mails, most expressing the same comments, requests and suggestions that have been offered throughout the process.
"I'm getting a lot of the same feedback, the same people wanting the same thing," Smith said Tuesday. "Some people say thanks for some of the changes made, and only Spring Ridge residents want any of the (1, 1A, 1B or 1C options)."
About 30 Spring Ridge parents want to prove the point that they are much closer to Oakdale Middle and High schools than they are to Gov. Thomas Johnson Middle and High. They plan to walk from their community to Oakdale Middle before the redistricting meeting.
"We cannot think of a better way to illustrate how close our neighborhood actually is to Oakdale Middle School, and why it is ludicrous that we are asked in more than half of the options to go to the fifth-farthest middle school by mileage, and the sixth-farthest middle school if you measure by travel time," Spring Ridge resident Joy Schaefer wrote in an e-mail.
Barnes said that other groups still weighing in on the subject include Walkersville /Md. 26 corridor residents who want to remain at Walkersville schools instead of being redistricted to Gov. Thomas Johnson Middle and High and Mount Airy residents upset over a potential move from New Market Middle to Windsor Knolls Middle.
Smith said she's ready for the process to be over.
"It's time," she said. "We're never going to make everyone happy."
Board members let people know more than a year ago what the study area was, and all of that area has been at risk of being moved from one school district to another, she said.
She said she realizes that no one wants to be redistricted and believes it really is more of an adult issue than it is a student issue.
"We've got to fill up Windsor Knolls Middle, I'm sorry," Smith said. "And I tell people that we didn't build the communities so large that they don't fit in one school.
"It's time to make a decision."
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