New school zones under development

Plans for redrawing attendance zones for M.D. Shannon and J.A. Hernandez elementary students are now underway by Michael Hefner of Geographic Planning & Demographic Services.

The board voted March 21 to close the two schools in the face of declining enrollment and slumping revenue. Students who would have gone to Shannon in Morgan City will now go to either M.E. Norman or Wyandotte. Students in what is now Franklin’s Hernandez zone will instead go to either Foster or LaGrange.

At the same meeting, the St. Mary Parish School Board authorized superintendent of schools Leonard Armato to negotiate services with Hefner’s geographic planning.

“I’m going to try to fast-track this thing so we can pretty much have everything in place by the end of May,” Hefner said.

Hefner, a former Lafayette Parish School Board member, knows far too well the process of consolidating schools and wants to put parents at ease with the transition taking place next school year.

“We’re going to try to keep neighborhoods together,” Hefner said. “So, kids typically going to school from the same area now we’re going to try to keep those neighborhoods together.

“I try to be real sensitive to that because when you consolidate or close schools, it’s very tough.”

Hefner will use geographic information system software to analyze where the best place is to move the new attendance zones.

As of Feb. 1, a total of 336 students were enrolled at Shannon and Hernandez, Assistant Superintendent Teresa Bagwell said. Those students will be affected by the consolidation plan.

The school district’s enrollment, not including pre-kindergarten students, is 8,106.

The following information will be used for redistricting:

—How many students will be rezoned?

—What is the racial breakdown of schools?

—What is it doing for the receiving school?

“The software really allows me to really fine-tune a plan in a short period of time,” Hefner said.

“And if the board or somebody says to me, ‘Well, what if you move the line from here to there?’, I can show you right away how many students we’re looking at and what it does.”

Other information Hefner will need to develop his paper map are:

—Current school zones.

—Location of the schools.

—Which schools are closing and which schools they want to move students to.

—A database of students’ home addresses.

The most time-consuming part of the process is locating students’ addresses on a map. Hefner goes through each student record to find their address on a map and place a dot there.

Hefner hopes to meet with central office staff members (the superintendent and administrators who deal with transportation, special education and regular education) to go over one or two draft plans to see where the numbers are falling.

“I’d like to get at least those in the room so we make sure that any zone line changes we make are going to be appropriate for the students from those different perspectives,” Hefner said.

“There may be after-school programs that they’re doing or that they want to do so we want to take all of those into account.”

After Hefner receives staff feedback, he will meet with the school board. The board can decide to look at the initial drafts, offer suggestions and have a public hearing on it.

Or the board may decide to have a public hearing first and then look at the draft plans, Hefner said.

Once a new student assignment plan comes forward, the board will hold a public hearing introducing the new plan and eventually vote on it.

The school system is under a desegregation order.

“St. Martin, Vermillion and St. Mary school boards for years thought they were unitary and not under the desegregation order that had been settled years before,” Hefner said.

“And just recently, it came to light that their orders were never signed off properly. So in the eyes of the government, they are still under a desegregation order.”

With a desegregation order, Hefner wants to ensure the law is upheld with zoning plans.

“Since they are under a desegregation order, we’ve got to make sure that whatever changes we do don’t make the numbers worse,” Hefner said. “We want to try to maintain what we have. …

“Actually, if we can further desegregate, then we most certainly want to do that,” Hefner said. “So, we’re going to have to be mindful of that.

“And since that is active litigation, the board may wish to go into executive session to discuss some of this, which is certainly their prerogative.”

A standard service charge for Hefner’s planning company is based on a school district’s total enrollment. The costs range upward from $20,000 to $30,000.

Redrawing attendance lines for school districts with a maximum of 2,500 students costs $20,000. The cost for a district with 2,501 to 5,000 students is $25,000.

St. Mary Parish school district falls into the $30,000 category for rate charges. Hefner is offering discounts to the district.

“Because they’re already a client for redistricting, they’ll receive a discount,” Hefner said. “And I’ll probably extend an additional discount on that just to kind of help them out on the budget stuff a little bit.”

But with an active desegregation lawsuit, extra costs could be incurred.

“Now, there will be other factors that come into play on it,” Hefner said. “If it’s an active desegregation case where there’s a lot of stuff going on with the attorneys and pending court dates … that will have an effect on it.”

Unsure of how the district’s desegregation’s process will proceed, Hefner is going to make sure that the new student zoning assignments’ project is documented with details about what is being done and why.

“I guess 21 years of being a board member in Lafayette and going through some of that, too, I still have that empathy for them,” Hefner said.

“We’re going to do this as economically as we can.”

Hefner has worked on rezoning plans for 20 school districts. His most recent contract was with a district in Tucson, Arizona.

He has also completed redistricting plans for the City of Morgan City and the St. Mary Parish Council.