Rezoning doesn't have to be so hard

Here's a shocker: Change is hard.

//

OK, maybe that isn't such a surprise. But some of the responses to school system rezoning sure make it seem that way.

Most parents have been understanding about the necessity of the current middle-school rezoning, but some of the reactions have sounded an awful lot like a paraphrase of the preferred method of taxation: Don't rezone me, don't rezone thee; rezone that fellow behind the tree.

When a new school is built - about once a year in Columbia County - the student population must be redistributed to put pupils in the new classrooms.

Elementary schools generally are smaller, so a new elementary rezoning usually shakes up only the population of nearby schools. The rezoning in preparation for the opening of Stallings Island Middle School requires significant redrawing of nearby zones, and is causing a few ripples for more-distant schools.

High schools are the largest. Their attendance zones, which will be remapped in a few weeks in preparation for the 2009 opening of Grovetown High School, will all change - some drastically. Many families accustomed to one school will be moved to another. That's just the way it works.

Yes, change is hard. But when attentive, engaged parents help their surprisingly adaptable students make the best of the experience, it can be a lot easier.