SPANISH FORT, Ala. — Concerned parents at a community meeting Thursday aired their views on a proposal to shift 75 to 100 students from Rockwell, to Spanish Fort Elementary. 

The discussion of the rezoning will affect residents south of Rockwell with the dividing line going somewhere between Spanish Fort Elementary and Rockwell, Tracy Roberts, Baldwin County Board of Education representative, said.

“This is a proposed rezoning without a specific plan at this point,” she said.

Some parents were concerned about the idea.

Worries included what mental strain the changes would have on the student. Changes of curriculum, location of the school, money invested in the school, leaving friends behind, other social consequences and that many parents purchased homes around where they wanted their children to attend school, were some of the concerns mentioned.

“It’s going to mentally put a challenge on my kids,” Jill Wilson, mother of two students at Rockwell, said. “Their grades are great and they’re happier here than at any other school they’ve been in.”

Some parents of fourth-graders said they didn’t want their child to have to attend three schools in a three-year period. They would go from Rockwell in fourth grade, to Spanish Fort Elementary in fifth grade and then to Spanish Fort Middle for sixth grade.

“I just can’t have that on my child,” Mindy Parker said.

Some suggestions parents had were to add on to Rockwell, make it mandatory to provide proof of address yearly instead of just when the child enrolls at the school or to get more schools in Daphne. Most TimberCreek residents — in Daphne — send their children to Rockwell Elementary, according to Roberts.

Another group’s members said it wants to see more schools in Spanish Fort because of the city’s rapid growth — seen in The Highlands, an 11,000-acre mixed-use development; and the Spanish Fort Town Center, among other projects.

The school board is weighing options to expand Rockwell, however, that is a long-term issue and last week’s meeting focused on short-term issues, Terry Wilhite, school board spokesman, said.

The reason behind the a proposed rezoning is that Rockwell has reached capacity and Spanish Fort Elementary has empty classrooms, school officials said.

The meeting allowed school board officials to see how parents feel about rezoning; also, it allowed them to clarify rumors they have heard regarding rezoning. Changes, however, will not go into effect until the 2009-10 school year.

A plan for rezoning is a year-long process, JaNay Dawson, Baldwin County public schools assistant superintendent, said Thursday. This is the first step, “tonight is just the beginning.”

Parents were split into five groups of 12 to list factors they found important in consideration of the change. They also were asked to list neighborhood factors they find important, during the 15-minute brainstorm.

Parents were then asked to pick the top five issues their focus group came up with and present the information at the meeting.

Ramona Hill, a professional facilitator, will record the questions and answers gathered from the estimated 60 parents in attendance for the focus group and administrative planning group.

All input in the planning process will be given to a focus group put together by Superintendent Faron Hollinger and school principals. The focus group will look at primary criteria such as geographic proximity, instructional capacity and projected enrollment, Dawson said.

Secondary criteria listed in the board’s redistricting policy include the frequency of neighborhood rezoning, special programs at the school, traffic patterns and school feeder pattern alignment.

The second step takes all input back to the school system, which will create an administrative planning group, Dawson said.

The planning group — comprising staff members in operating, transportation, information technology, curriculum and instruction, assistant superintendents and human resources — will develop a preliminary attendance zoning plan, according to the redistricting policy.

The planning group will then meet with the focus group to get its input, and later will announce the preliminary plan at a regularly scheduled public work session, the policy said.

Parents will be notified via NotifyMe — the school board’s e-mail-based communication tool — for the announcement of the next meeting. The board will also look into other ways to notify parents in advance since some said they do not use the Internet, nor did they receive notice of the meeting until one day prior.

The next meeting is unscheduled, Wilhite said.

“People tonight were responsive,” Hill said of last week’s meeting. “People came with open arms and not anger, which is a great thing.”

“I’m very pleased with how tonight went overall,” Dawson said. “I think in the ranking of criteria issues there was a consensus among the groups and the crowd.”

I think they’re valid issues I need to look into, and I will,” she said. “We’re doing our dead-level best.”