Just an FYI: The City Schools of Decatur School Board is scheduled to voted on the Superintendent’s recommendation of Map 9 at this evening’s board meeting, which begins at 6:30p at Westchester.  Here’s the agenda.

The public comment portion of the meeting will be the public’s final chance to speak out about the K-3 redistricting plan.

h/t: InDecatur

Another note from Asst. Superintendent Thomas Van Soelen; this time regarding the two remaining K-3 redistricting maps and the final public hearing next week, prior to the December 14th vote at the next full School Board meeting.

The Board has voted to narrow the map choices from 8 to 2: Maps 4 and 8 remain.

Comments are still being sought regarding those two maps through the same outlet as before: New Link . In response to the community, a decision-making scorecard was used and presented to the Board as well as added to the documents list: New Link . Finally, a FAQ of the four most commonly-asked questions at the informational session on 11.03.10 was added to the documents list.

The second final public hearing on this issue will be next Tuesday, November 16th, starting at 6pm at Westchester.

In case it might be useful, I’ve also pasted images of the two remaining maps after the jump so you can view them side-by-side.

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After receiving a very thoughtful note from a resident this morning detailing his trouble with understanding or recreating the CSD/GSU “differential” percentages found in the school system’s list of pros and cons for the 7 redistricting map options, I contacted Assistant Superintendent Thomas Van Soelen for clarification.

Mr. Van Soelen explained that the referenced “differential” is “derived from subtracting highest k3 school non-white percentage and subtracting lowest (not considering out of district)”, and that the reason these percentage differences did not match the charts was because GSU updated the data in the maps on Monday and the differentials were never recalculated.

The Assistant Superintendent provided me with a revised version of the pro/con list for the 7 redistricting maps, which now has the differential of white/non-white in map 7 as a CON instead of a PRO.  (NOTE: The “14% differential” in Map 7’s Con column still needs updating, as Mr. Van Soelen confirmed to me that map 7’s differential was now 18% and not 14%.  Additionally, the 11% non-white differential in the Con column for map 5 looks like it should be 23%.  I’ve contacted him about these discrepancies.)

Assistant Superintendent Thomas Van Soelen alerts us to a new page on the City Schools of Decatur’s website with additional info on the school system’s redistricting options.

In addition to .jpgs of the 7 map options are:

• A list of Pros and Cons of the 7 enrollment zone maps (PDF)
• Detailed written descriptions of the enrollment zones in the 7 maps (PDF)
• A Powerpoint presentation detailing the process of creating the 7 maps, assumptions that were made, answers to various questions (“What about current 2nd graders?, “Why not use free/reduced lunch data?”, etc…).  **Note that page 14 of this presentation also states that Map 4 is a “strong contender”, along with Map 7.**

Also, feel free to use the comments section of post to report on your takeaways and reactions to last night’s redistricting work session.

With the help of “GSU partners”, a City Schools of Decatur sub-committee has come up with seven different redistricting options, all of which are available to the viewing public HERE.

Along with the color-coded maps, you can also view grade and race population totals for Decatur’s four K-3 schools, based on a model that assumes the next incoming kindergarten class will be the same size and come from the same areas as the current class.

In Superintendent Phyllis Edwards’ letter to the Board of Education (pdf), she lists out 10 assumptions that were made in the creation and evaluation of these maps, and ultimately recommends Option #7 for adoption, with the caveat that Glennwood keep trailers for Pre-K and that Oakhurst keep a trailer “in order to allow for the possibility of opening Westchester in 2012-2013, lessening chances that families on the west side of town would need to be zoned differently three years in a row.”

The school board will hold a public work session about the redistricting on Tuesday at 5:30p in the Westchester Auditorium.  Additionally, the Superintendent’s note states that blow-up versions of the maps will be displayed at all the K-5 schools and that the public will be able to comment about the proposed options online or in person over the next month or so.

The Superintendent has stated that she’d like to get a vote on redistricting before the school board in November.

“Option 7″ in the map above.  Red = Clairemont, Yellow = Glennwood, Green = Oakhurst, Blue = Winnona Park