Southern Kern Unified holds public hearing on trustee-area drafts, directs staff to post revised "yellow" map

At a public hearing on draft trustee-area boundaries, the Southern Kern Unified School District reviewed three published map options and a new, not-yet-posted fourth alternative that the demographer says could place a potential new elementary school site in Trustee Area 5.

Dr. Justin Levitt, the district’s demographer from National Demographics (introduced at the meeting as Justin Levitt), told the board the session was the first of two public hearings on proposed trustee-area maps and outlined the process and legal criteria. "Tonight basically is the first of our 2 public hearings on the draft maps to allow us to look at and study the revised the maps," Levitt said, noting the board could post revised maps for review next week and make a final selection in mid-January. He said the drafts meet the “one person, one vote” standard by keeping deviation under roughly 10% and that map-drawers did not use partisan or incumbent residence data when drawing lines.

Levitt described the three published options (referred to in the meeting as the green, orange and purple maps) and explained where they differ: the green map relies on Rosamond Boulevard and the freeway as dividing lines and shows Trustee Area 4 as a majority Latino area; the purple map extends Area 5 farther north and leaves Area 5 without an existing school site; the orange map crosses Rosamond in more places to avoid splitting that street as a boundary.

In addition to those three, Levitt introduced a fourth, "yellow" map that had been prepared in response to community feedback and had not been publicly posted before the meeting. He said the yellow map was designed to include a prospective fifth school site along Holiday Avenue in Area 5. "If the board would prefer using 40th all the way down to Holiday, we can take that area out to 45th as well. It doesn't affect the population numbers," Levitt said while describing options for moving small census blocks.

Board members and attendees pressed for adjustments to avoid splitting established neighborhoods. Becky, an assistant principal at Roseman Elementary who identified herself during public comment, asked if Levitt had visited the community; he said he had driven through the area in prior years but had not done a recent in-person tour for the project. Several trustees and residents pointed out places where the draft lines ran through Heatherfield, through a small triangular census block just north of Holiday Avenue, or cut off a pocket along United Street. Trustees asked whether shifting those pieces would change the district’s Latino citizen voting-age population in Area 4; Levitt warned that moving certain whole neighborhoods between census blocks could reduce the Latino CVAP in Area 4 below 50% and showed on-screen population deviation estimates as the board proposed edits.

At the board’s request, Levitt experimented with live edits on the map, showing configurations that would move parts of Area 5 north (toward 45th–50th Street) and reunite the United Street pocket into Area 4. He reported that one workable configuration would reduce the overall population deviation to approximately 3.25 percent while reuniting the concerned neighborhood. The board discussed whether the yellow map could be posted for public review, and the board’s legal consultant reiterated that modified maps must be posted seven days before consideration at a public hearing but that it is permissible to publish them for public review in advance of the next hearing.

After discussion the board directed staff to post a revised yellow map for public review and carry the item forward to the next public hearing. Staff committed to post the modified map on the district website as soon as it was finalized. The board also discussed sequencing of trustee elections under education-code requirements and confirmed that sequencing included tentative assignments now and a final sequencing after a map is selected.

What happens next: The presenter said revised maps could be posted for public review before the next public hearing, which the board scheduled for the following week; the board intends to take final action at the mid-January meeting. The county committee on school district organization will hold a hearing on the board’s preferred map before election boundaries are used in fall ballots.