[1/6/05]Elementary teachers in the Vicksburg Warren School District were given questionnaires Wednesday designed to find out who is interested in teaching at Bovina Elementary School if it is reopened this fall.

The survey is a part of the district’s plan to hit the ground running if the school board, which has two new members in Jerry Boland and Tommy Shelton, votes to reopen the school at its Jan. 20 meeting.

“Whether they do or whether they don’t, I’ll be ready to give the teachers their assignments,” Superintendent James Price said.

Elementaries will convert to a zoned attendance system next school year, ending a five-year choice-based system.

The district conducted a survey in the fall to determine teacher preferences for grade and school if Bovina stays closed. Fewer than 4 percent expressed a desire to leave current positions and schools, Price said.

If the board votes to reopen the school east of Vicksburg, Bovina would house 402 students with a racial balance close to 50-50, Price said. No student would be bused more than six miles. If the school is not reopened, students would have to travel to Redwood, Beechwood or Sherman Avenue. Each school is between 11 and 13 miles from the Bovina area.

Bovina is one of the fastest-growing areas in Warren County. Since the school closed in 1999, 106 more students moved into the zone that a reopened Bovina would serve.

Under the choice-based program, which started with the 1999 opening of two large new schools in north and south zones, most elementaries were K-4 and all fifth- and sixth-graders have attended one of the district’s two intermediate schools housed at Dana Road and Sherman Avenue mega-schools. As a part of the choice plan, four schools, including Bovina, were closed.

Under choice, parents could select any K-4 school in north or south zones with racial balance controlled administratively. Under the new plan with zones for each school, the racial balance will be the same or more balanced between black and white students than the current ratios.

In the original community schools proposal, Bovina was to be reopened and a new elementary school would’ve been built within city limits. However, the change was not included in the plan approved by the U.S. Justice Department.

The issue was dormant until the days leading up to the November election of two new board members.

District 1 Trustee Boland said then that if the classroom space is needed, “by all means, we need to open it back up.”

Shelton, who won the District 5 seat, said he’d be willing to revisit the issue.

Opening Bowmar would allow the district “a little elbow room,” Price said. “We are at capacity now,” he said.