Revised school redistricting maps online

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August map showing proposed attendance zones. (MGT image)

Williamsburg-James City County schools released the latest tweaks to its redistricting map online Tuesday night, showing minor changes to some attendance zones.

“This is not the final map” said Board Chair Andrea M. Donnor.

The schools will be emailing and texting a new survey to parents and students today so they can comment on the changes. A community online survey will also be available from Aug. 5 through Aug. 16.

Feedback will be considered in preparing a final attendance map in September, and the school board will vote on a decision Oct. 20.

The latest map makes no changes to attendance zones at Ford’s Colony, the largest subdivision in the area, whose elementary schools will be split between Matoaka and D. J. Montague along voting district lines.

But The Pointe at Jamestown, a much smaller neighborhood whose residents wanted their children to continue walking to Clara Byrd Baker elementary, would stay at Clara Byrd under the new map.

Kingspoint neighborhood, whose children attended Matthew Whaley, would be reassigned to Laurel Lane Elementary. Mirror Lakes and Wellington neighborhoods will no longer attend Stonehouse Elementary.

The Aug. 4 revision took into account feedback from parents, students, staff and community members to surveys that were conducted in June, officials said. But many of the requests to keep existing school assignments could not be accommodated without causing other issues, they said.

School Superintendent Daniel Keever explained every decision required balancing competing goals of maintaining neighborhood schools, using bus transportation effectively, maintaining diversity and avoiding under- or over-capacity situations at any of the schools.

“Redistricting is among the most challenging conversations a school division can undertake,” Keever said.

The redistricting, which would take effect in the fall of 2027, impacts 16% of the school system’s 11,103 students. It is the direct result of the planned opening of two Bright Beginnings early education schools in 2027.

That change will move prekindergarten students out of the five elementary schools where they are currently being taught, into two new dedicated buildings. The change will allow the schools to remove the modular classrooms used to handle overflow without overtaxing school capacity.