'This is not my Lynchburg': Parents and teachers react to LCS redistricting draft

LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) — Lynchburg City School parents are upset following Tuesday's school board meeting. The board looked over the first draft of elementary school attendance zones for the 2025 - 2026 school year.

The drafted school zones use a close-to-home approach, rather than the patchwork approach Lynchburg is used to.

Deputy Superintendent Reid Wodicka said this new approach is what LCS needs.

"They in many cases, depending on the size of the school, sort of stretch across the city, rather than sort of being small islands," he said. "That allows, for an attempt at least, to provide opportunities to different people in different neighborhoods."

With the impending closures of Sandusky and T.C. Miller, LCS has to make changes to zoning, but parents are not happy with their first draft.

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Parents and teachers ABC13 spoke with Wednesday, and those who stood up during public comment Tuesday night said they're worried the drafted school zones would overcrowd and re-segregate Lynchburg City Schools.

This proposal is throwing Lynchburg back to the 1960's. This is not my Lynchburg," one person told the board.

The drafted re-zoning uses a close-to-home approach, creating linear districts instead of the current zones that have islands across the city.

Parents and teachers said they're worried this would overcrowd the schools and create a lack of diversity, something they said they warned the board about.

"You're ignoring Lynchburg's history, culture, and systems that still persist, that continue discrimination and perpetuate racism," Nettie Webb, a member of Save our Schools, told the board.

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Colleen Larkins, a Sandusky parent and member of Save our Schools said this redistricting would also widen the achievement gap created during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now you're going to pick up these kids and you're going to move them to schools with teachers they don't know, with administrators, principals that don't know their specific needs-- and you're doing that in mass," Larkins said.

Superintendent, Dr. Crystal Edwards insisted that this draft is just a starting point. Neither she nor Deputy Superintendent Reid Wodicka were available for an interview Wednesday, so ABC13 asked Larkins for her concerns, so we can bring them directly to those in charge.

"Why is this draft just now coming out with such glaring issues? Why wasn't this worked out before it was put into the public eye," she asked. "Are we really looking at equity? We say we are, but are we really? And not just equity racially, but equity of everything?"