Modesto City Schools ready to vote on final map for trustee areas

Modesto City Schools trustees will meet at 6 p.m. Monday to consider the long-awaited split into voting areas. The timing will allow the district to hold its first by-area elections in November.

The district got voter approval in 2016 to change its at-large voting tradition, where the full district votes on all members, to electing by areas, a change meant to increase representation for minority neighborhoods and comply with the California Voting Rights Act.

In 2008, the city of Modesto divided into voting areas after being the first civic entity to be sued as part of a statewide effort to force such splits. The city fought and lost, as has every city and school district since, paying a $3 million settlement.

Modesto City Schools is among the last districts in Stanislaus County to divide into trustee areas, a split made more complex by its rare, dual-district makeup.

MCS administrators and board in practice serve two districts too different to unify. Modesto City elementary students live in 30 square miles of mostly central, west and south Modesto. The Modesto City high school district, however, covers a fish-shaped, 280-square-mile area including seven separate elementary districts as well as its own.

How to draw the maps to be fair to its high school constituents, while still serving the elementary students that make up slightly more than half Modesto City Schools’ 30,500 enrollment, poses more than the usual quandaries. National Demographics Corp. created four maps, each with seven areas of roughly equal population, for the board to choose between.

In general, Map 1 has the most compact zones. Map 2 best matches high school boundaries. Map 3 largely follows elementary school boundary lines from all high school districts. Map 4 twists and turns to accommodate sitting trustees, the bulk of whom live near other trustees. Under Maps 1-3, some would have to run against each other.

Find interactive maps of the four versions they will choose between at www.MCS4kids.com. The meeting will be 6-7 p.m. April 17 at the Modesto City Schools board room in the Staff Development Center, 425 locust St., Modesto.

This story was originally published April 16, 2017 at 6:19 PM with the headline "Modesto City Schools ready to vote on final map for trustee areas."