Little can be done to console upset parents whose children are likely to be zoned for different schools from the ones they were expecting to attend. Dozens of those parents made their displeasure known Tuesday in a protest at the Hamilton County Department of Education.
Their objections range from reduced property values if their neighborhoods are rezoned for a lower-performing school to the prospect of long commutes for their children.
Those are understandable concerns, but no easy alternative to rezoning is on the table. East Hamilton Middle/High School is more than 300 students over capacity already. That plainly can't continue.
There have been recommendations that the school system check carefully to remove any currently out-of-zone (or even out-of-state) students who may be attending East Hamilton illegally. That's a valid suggestion and might relieve a bit of the crowding. But that effort, however legitimate, seems unlikely to remove enough students from the school that the rezoning could be dropped or significantly scaled back.
Parents want their children to attend the best school available -- preferably close to home. But with facilities limited, this is not the first time parents and students alike have faced disappointment over zoning. And it will not be the last.