Board of Education seeks public input on Voting District changes

Jackson Daniel, Assistant Superintendent for Support Services

The Monroe County School System is working through the process of adjusting its Board of Education Voting Districts to reflect the most recent U.S. Census numbers.

As a part of that process, the Board will hold a Public Hearing at 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday, January 24, 2012. This hearing will be held in the Board Room of the Central Office of the Monroe County School System, 25 Brooklyn Avenue, Forsyth, GA.

The Board is also taking public comment through its public website located at www.monroe.k12.ga.us. Visitors to this site will find the proposed Voting District maps and a comment form in the left menu on the system and all the school websites.

Following the completion of the U.S. Census every ten years, public entities with elected representatives who serve districts are required to review existing Voting Districts and submit any adjustments necessary to mirror the Census figures.   The Voting Districts proposed by the public body must then be approved by the State Legislature and by the U.S. Department of Justice.

When members of the Monroe County Board of Education visited the Georgia Reapportionment Office several months ago, they learned that population numbers in Monroe County had changed. This prompted the task of redrawing Voting District lines to accommodate the changes.

Specifically, population shifts from the areas in and around the City of Forsyth, into other parts of the county, meant that population needed to be redistributed among all districts. The ideal result is to have the same number of Voting Age Population distributed among each of the seven School Board Districts while maintaining identifiable boundary lines.

After reviewing several drafts of maps, the Board of Education is proposing the approval process be started for the maps which are now viewable on the system website. Visitors to that website will find a county wide map showing the proposed seven districts, along with an overlay (in dark lines) of the current district lines which were originally adopted following the 2000 Census. There is also a map which shows a blowup, or larger detail, of the area in and around the City of Forsyth.

After the January 24 public hearing, and the taking of public comments through the website, the Board will decide whether or not to submit the proposed maps to Monroe County's legislative delegation (State Representatives Susan Holmes and Robert Dickey), for introduction of local legislation to the Georgia General Assembly.

Once action is taken by the legislators, the next step will be submission to the U.S. Justice Department for Preclearance under the Voting Rights Act.

If approved, the adjusted Voting Districts would be effective with the November election.