Few students take option to switch school zones

Parents and students in Walker and Whitfield counties still have time to decide if they want to attend a school outside their designated zone.

A law recently passed by the Georgia Legislature allows students to attend any school within their district if there is space available and they have their own transportation.

The new law -- House Bill 251 -- requires that Georgia school systems advertise the option.

But leaders in Dade, Catoosa, Walker and Whitfield said there hasn't been much interest, although they publicized the information.

"We've had less than 20 inquiries about it from an enrollment of about 13,500," Whitfield County spokesman Eric Beavers said in an e-mail.

Dade, Catoosa, Walker and Whitfield counties always have allowed students to attend schools outside their zone if there is room and they have transportation.

"(The new law) changed the system's procedures for out-of-zone students," Catoosa County Superintendent Denia Reese said. "(It) changed our procedure for calculating available space in a school, required that we post openings and provided a timeline for parents to make an out-of-zone request."

Mrs. Reese said it didn't increase the number of out-of-zone requests in her schools.

Dade County Superintendent Patty Priest said the new law will have a greater impact on larger Georgia school systems.

In nearby Hamilton County in Tennessee, the issue came up in the 2008 board of education elections. School board member Rhonda Thurman said she thinks her system should allow out-of-zone attendance, which she said was permitted before former Superintendent Jesse Register took over in 1997.

"It worked for 50 years before Jesse Register got here," Mrs. Thurman said. "The taxpayer pays for every school in the school system."