Come 2013, if everything goes according to plan, all of Centennial's elementary level students will be attending one of three new regional schools.

The question is, which one?

School district officials discussed plans for how the current zoning map for the district's former six elementary schools will be rezoned to accommodate the three new regional buildings Wednesday evening.

"This is just an initial draft," said Acting Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Foigt-Cressman. "I want to put that in bold, capital letters."

Foight-Cressman described the new map as dividing the district into nearly equal thirds, sending almost exactly the same number of kids to each of the three elementary schools.

She said the new plan has zones that are contiguous; whereas the zoning map the district currently operates under has several pockets where kids are bused out of their neighborhood.  

"This is not an ideal practice and it is something we want to eliminate with the redistricting," she said.

Vic Lasher, the district's former director of facilities, who now serves as a consultant to the school board, said the changes are relatively minor and only simplify the map.

"[It holds to the] expectation of Leary going to Willow Dale, Longstreth going to McDonald and Stackpole going to Davis," he said. "Take all of those attending zones and put them into the new building zones and it is very close to this map."

At Wednesday's Operations Committee meeting, school district officials detailed the six proposed zoning changes and discussed the number of students each change would affect.

The proposed changes are as follows:

• The entire Stackpole population, including the existing Davis zone, as well as all of the Southampton and Huntington Valley addresses will attend the Region 1 school (750 students).

• In the McDonald zone: from Orchid north to Bristol Road, including Davisville Road, south to Hogeland will go to the Region 1 school (10 students).

• Shenandoah Woods/Navy Housing will go to the Region 1 school (35 students).

• The remainder of Longstreth zone will go to the Region 2 school (355 students).

• The entire Leary zone will go to the Region 3 school. (370 students).

• In the McDonald zone: south of Fir Street will go to the Region 3 school. This includes addresses on Madison, Evergreen and York Road. (40 students).

Each of the districts three new elementary buildings will have a capacity of 1050 students. The anticipated number of students attending the Region 2 and Region 3 schools will not be far from that capacity. However, the number of students attending the Region 1 school will be significantly lower.

Lasher said this is to accommodate for a projected growth in the number of students that will come into the district when the Shenandoah Woods redevelopment project is completed.

Foight-Cressman said that while the final decision on redistricting is ultimately a board decision, she wants to involve the public as much as possible. She anticipates at least two public meetings for the community to comment on the suggested plans, before the board takes a final vote.

The next Centennial School Board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 11, at 7 p.m.