School board redistricting meeting Monday, open for public comment

The Blaine school board will hold a special meeting Monday, November 22, at 6 p.m. to discuss the redrawing of the director district boundaries prior to the regular school board meeting at 7 p.m. Members of the public are invited to ask questions and provide comments on the draft redistricting plan, the school district announced in a November 15 news release.

The Blaine school district is divided into five director districts with one representative from each district serving on the Board of Directors. These district boundaries must be reviewed every 10 years following the release of the U.S. Census to ensure equal representation on the board.

As the law requires, new boundaries must meet five criteria:

Balancing population: Since the school board represents all residents, the total population of each director district is considered, not just the population of residents who are receiving the district’s educational services.

Compactness: Director districts should not be unnecessarily thin or serpentine.

Geographical contiguity: The district’s unique geographical landscape, which includes bodies of ocean water as well as an international boundary, provides a significant challenge to meeting this criterion. To overcome this challenge, contiguity has been determined using census blocks.

No racial group or political party is favored or disfavored: In addition to ensuring equal representation of all residents, the director districts must not favor or disfavor any racial group. Additionally, protecting the position of current board members, as well as existing candidates, ensures fair political treatment in the redistricting process.

Alignment with natural boundaries and preservation of communities of interest: Wherever possible, director district boundaries follow existing roadways and boundary lines. Efforts are made to preserve any communities with common interests inside a single director district.

Sammamish Data Systems, which facilitated the process in 2010, will facilitate the district’s redistricting again this year.

The process is normally completed much earlier, the school district said, but due to pandemic-related delays in the release of census data, the redistricting timeline was pushed back.

For more information and a link to the meeting, visit blainesd.org/article/588166.