Public invited to weigh in on new plans for Glendale Unified voting districts
Glendale school officials will hold three community meetings next month to gather community input on how Glendale Unified’s new voting districts should be drawn, a move that school officials are required to take after they were sued for allegedly violating the state’s voting rights act.
With four drafts of maps drawn up, school officials are most concerned about getting the word out to residents, hoping that they will give school officials their opinions and preferences about them.
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They’ve posted the four proposed maps online for the public to review.
The drafts were drawn according to federal and state requirements, which mandate that each district have about the same number of residents.
The maps also take into consideration the attendance boundaries of Glendale’s elementary schools.
One of the four maps would allow two residents of north Glendale or La Crescenta to win a seat on the school board.
“These are four very different approaches, all of which meet all the criteria, just in different ways,” said Doug Johnson, president of National Demographics Corp. who was brought on to draft several maps for the public’s consideration as part of the district’s lawsuit settlement,.
Johnson is a Glendale resident who previously guided Glendale Community College through a similar process. Both the college’s and school district’s voting districts are expected to take effect by the April 2017 election.
“These are the maps to get the discussion going,” Johnson said during a school meeting this week. “We’ll emphasize this a lot at the forums — it’s not so much, ‘Which map do you like best?’ It’s ‘Why?’”
“I think that community input is just really important,” said school board member Jennifer Freemon.
However, the topic doesn’t always draw crowds.
“I think we need to be realistic about — you can do everything and still not capture what a sufficient amount of input would be,” said co-interim Supt. Joel Shawn.
“To some degree, a lack of interest is because it’s a weird issue,” Johnson said, who has drawn maps for cities and school districts throughout California and other states
The three community meetings will occur at 6 p.m. on March 10 at Roosevelt Middle School at 222 E. Acacia Avenue in Glendale, March 16 at Crescenta Valley High School, located at 2900 Community Avenue in La Crescenta, and March 17 at Toll Middle School at 700 Glenwood Road in Glendale.
School officials also seek input from residents through email. Any comments or suggestions about the maps can be emailed to trusteeareas@gusd.net.
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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com
Twitter: @kellymcorrigan
