Glendale school officials plan community meetings to get input on redistricting

Glendale school officials are gearing up to seek public input about how the school district’s new voting districts should be plotted in their ongoing effort to transition from an at-large voting system to a district-based one after Glendale Unified was sued for allegedly violating the rights of minority voters.

Establishment of voting districts was part of the lawsuit’s settlement.

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Three of the five new voting districts are expected to be in effect for the April 2017 election, when the terms for school board members Greg Krikorian, Christine Walters and Armina Gharpetian will be up. Two other voting districts are expected to be in effect for the April 2019 election, when the terms of board members Nayiri Nahabedian and Jennifer Freemon will come to an end.

The new voting system will replace the at-large system the school district currently uses, where board members are elected to the board regardless of where they live in Glendale.

School officials will likely release drafts of a few potential maps outlining boundaries of new voting districts later this month, when they will also release dates of a series of community meetings they will hold to gather input from residents about the map drafts.

During a school board meeting on Tuesday, board member Armina Gharpetian pushed for a community meeting to be held on a Saturday, in addition to three evenings that school officials already suggested. She said many parents and residents are busy on weeknights cooking dinner or tending to their children.

“I think we should aim for that one extra community meeting, just in case,” she said.

School board members will likely discuss the drafts of the maps during their Feb. 16 meeting, and explore hosting a fourth community meeting on a Saturday once they know that the demographer assisting the district in creating the maps can attend.

The Glendale Unified School Board is likely to adopt the final districts at a meeting in May.

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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan