Racial makeup is high on the list of criteria for new school attendance zones recently drawn up by Coweta County Board of Education officials.

Parents of students in seven of the county's elementary schools will now have their shot at telling school board members what they think.

School officials unveiled the new attendance zones Tuesday night at the Coweta County Board of Education meeting and announced a public hearing would be conducted next Tuesday at Central Middle School in Newnan at 6 p.m.

Administrators and school officials are encouraging parents to either show up at the public hearing or e-mail their feelings to the school board.

The new lines reflect the work of a committee set up last spring to try and solve the problem of redistricting in a high-growth county, such as Coweta.

Under the proposal, new district lines were drawn for seven elementary schools: Atkinson, Elm Street, Jefferson Parkway, Newnan Crossing, Ruth Hill, Poplar Road and White Oak.

Director of operations Doug Bennett said school officials took a number of criteria into affect, including racial makeup.

“The system was trying to have individual schools more closely resemble the overall makeup of the school system,” he said.

Newnan Crossing, which was nearly 85 percent minority, will be 34 percent minority under the plan and have 792 students. White Oak, which had a very small minority population, now moves to 24 percent minority out of 780 students.

Another factor school officials used was the growth area surrounding the individual schools. Bennett said Jefferson Parkway Elementary is sitting across the street from Lullwater, which will bring several new families to the area when it's built out.

Bennett also is hoping to get feedback from parents on what size they want the schools to be.

“There was a time, not too long ago in this school system, that elementary schools were 400 students. Now, we're looking at 800 students,” he said.

New attendance maps were posted in all the schools Wednesday and parents who want to respond by e-mail should send their comments to dbennett@coweta.k12.ga.us.

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