Walker County school officials will hold a town-hall-style meeting next month to answer questions about the school system’s redistricting plan.

Saddle Ridge Elementary-Middle School, currently under construction on U.S. 27 in Rock Spring, is scheduled to open this fall with 500-550 student. The new school, for kindergarteners through eighth grade, is forcing the school system to redraw its school zones.

The meeting will be held Thursday, April 4, at 6:30 p.m. at the Advanced Education Center at 925 Osburn Road in Chickamauga. At the meeting, the most commonly asked questions will be addressed. Also, forms will be available for questions, which will be collected and addressed during the meeting.

The new boundary lines affect the majority of schools in the county, which will provide the grade levels for Saddle Ridge Elementary and Middle School.

According to the redistricting map, all of the students at the new school will be zoned for LaFayette High, which will balance the number of students between the county’s two high schools.

“The school board is going to (consider) a regulation change, where if you want to provide your own transportation, you can go to the school that you are (currently) at and not the school you are being zoned for, you would have that option as well,” superintendent Damon Raines said.

A more comprehensive look at the entire county during the rezoning aims to avoid repeating the process for a decade, according to Raines.

The two neighboring elementary schools — Rock Spring and Cherokee Ridge — have the largest enrollment changes.

The redistricting process has even changed enrollment numbers in slight ways by adding one southern subdivision to Fairyland Elementary, while expanding the area eligible to attend Gilbert Elementary.

All students in the central portion of the county — those attending Rock Spring and Saddle Ridge — will be attending Saddle Ridge Middle School. North LaFayette Elementary’s zone was shifted slightly toward the south, as some of their students will now be attending Rock Spring Elementary.

Only two (Rossville Elementary and Stone Creek) of the nine elementary school zones remained unchanged.

He plans to discuss the goals he sought during redistricting, including its effect on the budget and teacher allocations at schools.