Lines yet to be drawn in New Hanover County redistricting

After hours of discussion, and tweaking district boundaries, the school board has yet to draw the line.

In addition to mapping out new boundary lines, board members discussed how over-crowding, free and reduced lunches and busing issues play into the redistricting debate. The redistricting is a result of the county’s newest middle school, Holly Shelter.

A number of parents attended the meeting to express their concerns. They have mixed emotions about neighborhood school districts versus busing for socioeconomic equality and they know it’s going to take time for a final decision to be made.

“It’s going to take some compromise because I’d like to see a map where some of the economically disadvantaged children were distributed more evenly in the county than just being downtown,” said parent Wendy Browning.

School board members ended the meeting late Monday afternoon with four revised maps for the 8 school districts.

The board has until February 4th to reach a final decision. They are hoping to hold another public forum in January.

Parents said they would like to have some answers sooner than later.