School zone changes on group's agenda

By JASON WERMERS
Item Staff Writer
jwermers@theitem.com

The public may find out tonight what school attendance zones will look like when Sumter School Districts 2 and 17 merge in July 2011.

Or the Sumter Consolidation Transition Committee could send one of its subgroups, the Attendance Lines Subcommittee, back to the drawing board to start the process all over again.

The full consolidation committee is scheduled to meet at 6:30 tonight at the Santee-Lynches Regional Council of Governments, 36 W. Liberty St.

It was the issue of what school students can attend that led to the drive to consolidate the two districts, one of the subgroup members, the Rev. Leroy James, said at the panel's first meeting in April.

Keeping in mind the potential volatility of changing attendance lines, District 2 Trustee Karen Michalik, the group's chairwoman, adopted the philosophy of making as few changes as possible.

The approach to making any changes was to ensure that subdivisions or neighborhoods are zoned for the same school.

Several subdivisions are divided by the lines separating Districts 2 and 17 because when those lines were drawn many years ago, those areas were fields or forests.

"We're only fixing the boundaries where neighborhoods are divided," Michalik said at the panel's meeting last Thursday. "Why monkey around with a neighborhood where a problem doesn't exist?"

City Councilman William Painter, who is co-chairman of the transition committee with County Councilman Larry Blanding, has said his goal is to have the attendance boundaries resolved before the end of the year so they can be sent to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The department must review any changes to attendance boundaries because District 2 is under a court-ordered desegregation plan dating to 1969, and District 17 has a voluntary desegregation plan created in 1975.

The plan the subgroup is presenting to the full committee tonight is estimated to affect about 60 students, mostly along an area near Loring Mill Road and Wise Drive in the western part of the county, and a sliver along Mooneyham Road in the east.



Contact Staff Writer Jason Wermers at jwermers@theitem.com or (803) 774-1295.

WANT TO GO?
WHAT: Sumter Consolidation Transition Committee

WHEN: 6:30 p.m. today

WHERE: Santee-Lynches Regional Council of Government, 36 W. Liberty St.

HIGHLIGHTS: Most discussed topic is expected to be a proposal to change school attendance boundaries when Sumter School Districts 2 and 17 merge on July 1, 2011. The committee's other subgroups also are expected to present reports on what they have done since the full committee's last meeting in May.