Both Post 1 and Post 4 are affected by the oversight, school officials say, leaving school board members representing those districts adrift.
Under the local delegation’s newest proposed maps, the Post 4 board member won’t be able to travel from one side of his or her post without a boat, according to a letter on behalf of Superintendent Dr. Frank Petruzielo.
Calling it “one of the most glaring examples of gerrymandering,” district spokeswoman Barbara Jacoby wrote on behalf of Petruzielo on Tuesday that the delegation was entirely ignorant of Lake Allatoona when creating the new maps for House Bill 1223.
According to the guidelines set out by Georgia’s House Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Committee for 2011-12, districts shall be composed of contiguous geography. Districts that connect on a single point are not contiguous, according to the guidelines.
“The principles for reapportionment require posts to be connected by more than a single point of contiguous geography and, while Census blocks do lie under Allatoona’s waters, the Post 4 school board members would be unable to travel from one side of his post to the other without use of a boat, as there is no land connecting the two sides,” the letter said.
Rep. Sean Jerguson (R-Holly Springs) said that the school board’s definition of “contiguous” is different from the meaning of the term used by legislators for redistricting purposes.
The school district also calls the split of Post 1 over Lake Allatoona with only the Bells Ferry Road bridge connecting the two sides as “similarly preposterous.”
For the last decade or more, our Cherokee County Board of Education has enjoyed strong public support and has provided an "institutional buffer" protecting our local schools from domination by both state and local bureaucrats. Dr. P has played a pivotal role in providing the leadership to bring Cherokee County schools to a level of high-performance and credibility.
Most voters who went to the polls for Hill, Jerguson, Byrd, Rogers, strongly believed that they held the same basic American political ideology, one that favors local decision-making over distant government. By their actions, they do not.
The cure for this long-term, PTA’s must gain lost influence and respect that this delegation has taken away from us. Their advisors have educated them on undermining the leadership and control of the PTA….. Please understand this is not a game for them! Check out the e-mails that came from Hill and Byrd to PTA members and teachers.
Short-term cure, another American tradition, vote them out of office! The trust has been broken.....…We need a cure.