Rezoning will soon be over - for now

Columbia County's school board Tuesday is expected to approve a rezoning plan for all the county's high schools.

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But don't get too comfortable. The next change might be coming soon.

School rezoning is simple to explain but complicated to accomplish. In a perfect world, the addition of a fifth high school in Columbia County would simply mean taking all 7,000 or so students in the county's four high schools and dividing the number by five.

The world is far from perfect. School officials have to consider such factors as the capacities of the schools, transportation issues and the growth potential of individual zones. They also have to take "feeder" schools into account and try to avoid awkward splits in neighborhoods.

After all of those issues are satisfied, they then have to listen to the conflicting wishes of parents.

Rezoning is tough. And with Columbia County's fast growth, it is guaranteed to happen again. Grovetown High School will be the county's first new high school in 12 years; Superintendent Charles Nagle says it's almost a certainty that high school No. 6 will be needed far sooner.

Obviously, no such process is without flaws. We especially disagree with what seems to be a drastic drawdown of Harlem High's population.

But taken as a whole, which is the only way to consider it, county officials have done a good job of putting this rezoning together.

Just don't get too comfortable.