GCPS Board Member, Duluth Council Oppose Redistricting Plan

Updated 4:55 a.m., March 15, 2011.

The proposed redistricting involving the Peachtree Ridge and the Duluth school clusters has gained some opposition: a Gwinnett school board member and the  Duluth City Council.

The Duluth council Monday in opposition to the Gwinnett County Public Schools' proposal, which was announced last month. Details released by school officials show that, among other things, the area around Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth will again become part of the Duluth cluster.

Also, board member Mary Kay Murphy said Sunday that she does not support the current redistricting plan and would not vote in favor of it.

In the statement, Duluth recommends that areas originally in the Duluth cluster that were moved from Chattahoochee Elementary, which are geographically located closer to DHS, be moved back to the Duluth cluster.

Proposed redistricting plans also show that none of the affluent areas that Duluth lost to Peachtree Ridge in Suwanee a decade ago will be returning.

The full Gwinnett school board is scheduled to vote on the redistricting April 21. Public input currently is being sought, and the affected schools are forming boundary committees. Input from boundary committees is due to the system by April 1, with forms available on the GCPS website.

Current plans call for some 580 students to to the Duluth cluster for the 2011-12 school year. About 180 would be at the high school level. Also, about 100 students will be changing schools within the Duluth cluster, from Harris ES to Chesney ES.

Students currently in high school would have the option to remain at the same school, but would have to provide their own transportation.

Murphy also announced at an informational meeting hosted by Cardinal Lake Estates parents Sunday concerned with the redistricting plans that the BOE will hold a public hearing starting at 7 p.m. on April 20 at the ISC in Suwanee. Any changes to the April 18 map as the result of that input would be posted on the GCPS website the next day, she said, and the BOE will vote that night at 7 p.m. The April 20 public hearing would replace the 5-7 p.m. period prior to the board vote on April 21.

MKM said she went to Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks to request the additional comment time.

Duluth Mayor Nancy Harris, a former B.B. Harris Elementary School principal, was at the Cardinal Lake Estates meeting also. She drafted the opposition position statement the council adopted Monday night.