Polk County school leaders vote to move forward on rezoning 16 high schools

POLK COUNTY, Fla. — The Polk County School Board voted Tuesday on a plan that could change where thousands of students attend school next year.

Board members too the second and final vote on the rezoning plan for all 16 high schools in Polk County, approving it unamimously.

District leaders say comprehensive rezoning is needed to deal with growth in Central Florida, and while changes like these can be stressful for families, the Polk Education Association says these changes will be beneficial for students.

Officials say they didn’t take this lightly — the plan has been in the making for a couple years and allows for growth.

“Comprehensive rezoning is necessary and comes after years of data analysis, demographic studies, research into population growth trends and input from various community stakeholders throughout our district,” Superintendent Frederick Heid said in a video created by Polk County Schools.

Heid explained that the rezoning is necessary because of significant population shifts over the last decade, with some severely overcrowded high schools, and others, particularly those in the middle of the county, with much smaller enrollment and unutilized classroom space.

Maps show the current and new boundaries for high schools. Heid said it’s a plan that has been in the making for a couple of years. The district held a series of public meetings and surveyed families, and all of that data was used to help create the comprehensive rezoning plan.

Stephanie Yocum is the president of the Polk Education Association and says rezoning will ultimately benefit students and teachers.

“With the limited dollars that Tallahassee is not giving us, we need to make sure we are utilizing those dollars to the maximum capacity. And rezoning helps, again, not just with teachers, and being able to lower class sizes at overpopulated schools. It helps us bring more equitable and stable staffing plans to schools, and it also helps the student experience,” she said.

If passed, new school boundaries would go into effect next school year.

The district says there is a plan for current sophomores to be grandfathered into their current high schools, but they would have to provide their own transportation to get there. The district is also developing a plan for siblings to keep families together.