The board voted 5-1 to restore 49 middle and elementary school students in an area north of Bringle Ferry Road to the East attendance zone.

But board member Clyde Miller said he expects to see the area discussed again as a possible candidate for reassignment to the North district.

The vote rescinds part of a plan adopted last month. Miller voted against the measure. Dr. Ada Fisher abstained from the vote.

“I just think the original plan worked quite nicely — though it incurred the ire and wrath of a lot of people — because it was fair,”Fisher said.

That plan, adopted March 21, created a student body for Southeast Middle School. It also included a controversial measure to boost attendance at Salisbury High School.

And in an unexpected turn, the plan included moving students from the East district to the North district, including 33 elementary school students and 16 middle school students.

The plan passed on a 4-3 vote.

The board revisited the issue at its April 10 meeting, and reversed part of the plan, removing high school students from redistricting altogether.

The reversal also came on a 4-3 vote, with Miller switching positions.

At that meeting, the board voted to create a 21-member committee to study issues including redistricting. Nominations for that committee are due from board members by Monday.

When they reversed themselves on April 10, board members left in place changes to an area north of Bringle Ferry Road, reassigning students from East schools to Hanford Dole Elementary and North Rowan Middle.

Vick Bost, the board member who proposed the plan adopted March 21, said after the board removed high schools, Thursday’s move made sense.

“I think the logic would have been to send them all to North or all to East,” he said. “It’s more the logic and symmetry of it in keeping communities together.”

The system’s “problems are still out there,” Bost said. They include overcrowding at some schools and underutilization at others.

Erwin Middle, from which 16 students would have moved to North Middle next year before Thursday’s vote, remains over capacity despite the reassignment of 200 students from Erwin to Southeast Middle.

It’s that type of problem, among others, the board wants the committee to address.

Miller said he believes the committee, when it begins looking at long-term solutions, will look again to the east and the area north of Bringle Ferry Road.