School Board Begins Area Meetings

Anyone wanting to sound off about the proposed redistricting involving the Peachtree Ridge school cluster will get another chance Tuesday.

The Gwinnett County Public Schools will begin hosting area board meetings in the various districts. District II, which includes the Peachtree Ridge, North Gwinnett and Collins Hill clusters, will meet Tuesday at Lanier Highat 7 p.m. Daniel Seckinger, District II representative on the board, will host the meeting.

Controversy has ensued since Gwinnett schools announced in February that they plan to move about 580 students from the Peachtree Ridge cluster to the Duluth cluster for the 2011-12 school year. Also, about 120 students are targeted to move within the Duluth cluster as part of the revamp.

At the March school board meeting, Duluth Mayor Nancy Harris, speaking on behalf of the Duluth City Council, read a statement opposing the planned redistricting. And school board member Mary Kay Murphy, who represents the Duluth cluster, has said she will not vote for the plan in its current form.

Among other things, the current redistricting proposal would move the areas around the Gwinnett Place Mall, which is heavy with transitional housing, back into the Duluth cluster.

"We don't make decisions based on socioeconomic factors," Seckinger said after the March meeting. "If we did, we'd be taken to court, and we'd lose." Seckinger said he has not decided how he will vote on the redistricting.

Public input is being sought, and the Gwinnett school board is scheduled to vote on the redistricting at its April 21 meeting.

Another district meeting will be held Thursday at Norcross High at 7 p.m. For more information on the meetings or the redistricting, visit the school system's website.