School redistricting, as one board member noted, is probably the most emotionally charged education issue that parents and school officials face. Change doesn’t come easy, and when it involves the future of our children, it seems doubly hard.

Much of the tension and turmoil associated with school redistricting, in Salisbury or in Charlotte or any other city, stems from the sense of dislocation caused by severing ties and allegiances to one school and beginning the slow process of building them at another. And even when community ties, school allegiances and the length of bus rides are the only factors involved, redistricting is a complicated business.

It’s much more complicated, however, when it also involves the perception that some schools within a system are significantly better than others. Then, redistricting isn’t merely a matter of which schools parents would vigorously prefer their children to attend, but which they will — with equal vigor — try to avoid.

One board member, Dr. Ada Fisher, pointed to the issue of perceived inequities and suggested that it cannot and should not be separated from the immediate concern of redistricting. As the board wrestles with this particular realignment, she said, it also should examine the factors that drive school preferences.

Why, for example, do some parents so fervently prefer West Middle School to Knox, or South Rowan High to Salisbury High?

“How do we make schools more attractive not only to new residents,” she asked, “but to the people already there?”

That’s a good question, and one that the board has certainly not ignored in the past. Education officials have devoted considerable time, attention and resources to improving lower performing schools.

But the importance of addressing educational inequities, both perceived and real, bears keeping in mind now, as the board tries to work out a plan that both recognizes the cohesiveness of individual neighborhoods while strengthening the future health of the school system as a whole.

No redistricting plan will please everyone. The emotional component of change is just as real as the blocks and mortar that make up a school building.