The Monroe County Community School Corporation selected a new map for board redistricting during their meeting on July 25.
The MCCSC contracted with the Indiana Business Research Center to help draw the new districts, according to the IBRC. The MCCSC’s board districts have not been updated since 1994.
The IBRC is a part of the Kelley School of Business which conducts research and assists Indiana University in teaching students, according to their website.
The criteria for the new districts was that each district had to have equal population sizes and be located next to each other, according to the IBRC’s map options. The MCCSC waited to redraw the districts because the census data would not be available until April 2021, according to Indiana Public Media.
[Related: MCCSC experiences four months learning loss for math, reading since 2019]
According to Indiana Public Media, former Senior Project Manager of the consulting firm Strategic Development Group Brian O'Neill said in 2018 it was more realistic to wait until 2021 to redraw the districts to better understand the demographics. Strategic Development Group is a site selection firm that provides services such as site selection, economic development and economic impact analysis.
The IBRC used the 2020 Decennial Census data from the U.S. Census Bureau to create the district options.
At the July 25 board meeting School Board President Brandon Shurr said Map A most accurately meets the stated goals of the board.
“The new board districts have a total population ranging of 17,025 to 17,687, with a difference of any district from the mean being no greater than two percent,” Shurr said. “A significant improvement from our current board districts.”
[Related: MCCSC experiences rise in enrollment since pandemic but hasn't fully recovered]
Map A condensed the districts and used major roads as boundaries for the districts as much as possible. According to the IBRC, the percentage difference between the largest and smallest populations in the districts in Map A is 3.8%, the lowest difference among the three maps.
The Indiana State Board of Education will need to approve the redistricting and the new districts before they can go into effect.
