Furys Ferry area will get school rezoning

Parents will get a chance to weigh in on the rezoning of three Columbia County elementary schools Tuesday.

The school board will sponsor the public forum at 6:30 p.m. at Riverside Middle School to present two options for the rezoning of Riverside, Greenbrier and Stevens Creek elementary schools. Pupils from each of those schools will make up the student population of the new elementary school on Mullikin Road, which is set to open in 2005.

"What we're looking for is feedback," school board member Wayne Bridges said. "Somebody may have an idea out there that makes a lot of sense. We need to listen to those and act on them if it is something that would make a difference."

Both rezoning options will take about 550 pupils from the existing schools and place them in the new school. In both options, most of the pupils will be pulled from Riverside Elementary, the county's most populated elementary school with nearly 1,000 pupils.

Full details on the zoning proposals are available on the school board's Web site at www.ccboe.net.

"Those will be the options on the table," Bridges said. "You can't lay out five or 10 different scenarios. You've got to get it down to a couple of things that make sense as far as student numbers, transportation, all those different things. You have to give them some scenarios that make sense for the whole system."

Bridges expects a good turnout from parents in neighborhoods affected by the rezoning. Those neighborhoods include Bridlewood, Eagle Chase, Eagle Landing and Hamilton Crossing, and homes on Mullikin, Furys Ferry and Blackstone Camp roads.

"We've generally had good turnouts on rezonings, and for the most part, we've been very pleased with the attitudes (the public) brings in," Bridges said.

"I think everybody realizes that these things have to be done in growing communities."