Overcrowding at Fayette middle schools is redistricting's toughest challenge

This from the Herald-Leader:

Fayette County's middle schools are among the biggest challenges facing the school district's redistricting committee.

Alan Stein, chairman of the committee, said strides have been made in redrawing public-school attendance for the city's schools, but the issue of overcrowding remains for middle schools.

"We're already beyond capacity," he said following the two-hour meeting. "Today, there are a hundred more kids that go to middle schools than we have capacity for."

The pattern of elementary students moving into middle schools is also an issue, as two elementary schools are being built and plans call for a middle school to be built in the next several years.

Attendance zone changes will be implemented when two new elementary schools open in 2016 — one on Georgetown Road and the other off Polo Club Boulevard — and a new high school opens in 2017.

The committee continues to try to keep students from one neighborhood in one school and keep schools at or below capacity. But meeting those goals has proven difficult because "we're in some areas where the schools that are being built are overcapacity on the day they open," Stein said.

The next committee meeting is at 4:30 p.m. Dec. 18 at the district's Central Office, 701 East Main Street.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/12/04/3575849/redistricting-committee-looking.html?sp=/99/164/142/#storylink=cpy