Lee County school district discussing changes to school zones

There is a push to make things easier on parents and shorten your child’s bus ride.

Lee schools Superintendent Christopher Bernier is trying to help your child attend a school closer to home.

Right now, a lottery system determines where your child goes to school, resulting in many being bussed across town. The district has 637 bus routes. During a July workshop the district said its buses deliver more than 2,100 students late to school daily.

On Thursday, the district is beginning a series of town halls to discuss the plan to shrink school zones in order to do away with tardiness.

“This is not a transportation fault. This is our assignment process and trying to have a transportation system work within all the choice,” Bernier said.

The goal is to work to get as many elementary and middle school students in schools near their homes.

Parents would still have the option to enter a lottery if they want their kids to go somewhere else.

“We can still provide the students and families the choices that they deserve. But we are also better stewards of the public tax dollar in terms of transportation cost,” Bernier said.

More families are moving into Lee County.

Those parents find out fast that just because they live near a school doesn’t mean their student will go there.

Bernier is aware of the confusion.

“I just moved to the area,” he said. “I live across from a school. And I can’t go to school there. It’s an eye-opening experience.”

Instead, parents must choose the schools they hope to send their kids to and rank them.

This is because of a decades-old court order that put in place what’s known as student enrollment.

A judge got involved when the district failed to desegregate after Brown V. Board of Education.