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Henrico parents and teachers urge board to grandfather students, address overcrowding in redistricting plan
Summary
During public comment at the Sept. 25 Henrico County School Board meeting, parents and teachers urged the board to allow current high‑school students to remain at their schools and pressed the board to address overcrowding—especially at Skipwith and Freeman—before enacting boundary changes.
Parents, teachers and community members asked the Henrico County School Board on Sept. 25 to protect students’ school placements and to fix overcrowding before finalizing a proposed redistricting plan.
Jesse Naran, a parent of a Freeman High School freshman, told the board his son has joined sports and extracurriculars and "is not a tick mark on a chart," asking that "any student who has started high school be given the option to stay at the high school they have started." Naran said the number of students affected by the proposal would be small and that allowing current students to remain should be feasible.
Meredith Parker, a Gateshead resident with children at Freeman, similarly asked the board to adopt a waiver process so current freshmen and older students may remain through graduation. "Allow all current high‑school freshmen and above the choice to remain at the school they attend through a waiver process," Parker said, arguing this would promote student stability while staff phase in boundary changes.
Teachers and staff described strain at some elementary schools. Lauren Galloway, a Tuckahoe‑district teacher, said Skipwith Elementary has grown from roughly 500 students in 2021 to "over 600" this fall and lacks dedicated spaces for music and art, which are now taught on carts or on the stage during lunch. "We need more room or we need less students," Galloway said, warning that large rosters and cramped spaces are harming instruction and staff retention.
Emily Lancaster, another Skipwith teacher, told the board that counselors and special‑services rooms have been repurposed into workspaces and that class sizes and staffing levels raise safety and learning‑quality concerns.
Several speakers questioned timing and data. Caitlin Kalunga, a parent, said the district released the proposal before updated enrollment numbers and detailed projections, and raised equity concerns about shifts in low‑income student concentrations and capacity pressures at Tuckahoe. Marlene Sherlock asked the board to clarify whether grandfathering or transportation decisions would be made, and to publish classroom‑level sizes and counselor ratios to help families plan.
Not all comments opposed the proposals. Lisonbee Brown, a parent and former PTA/PTSO leader, voiced support for adjustments intended to relieve Tucker High School overcrowding and to reduce feeder splits that send students from one middle school to multiple high schools.
The board did not take action on redistricting at the Sept. 25 session. Chair Doctor Cashwell reminded the public that additional town halls are scheduled for Sept. 30 and Oct. 7 and that the board will review official class membership numbers in October as part of ongoing consideration of the proposals.
What’s next: the board has scheduled further public town halls and an Oct. 9 work session where updated enrollment figures and follow‑up information are expected to be discussed.
