Call the Post at 797-4225 and record your question. Please leave your name and phone number so we can contact you if we have questions.

In today’s Insight section on Page 7E, the Post also has reproduced a comment form that readers can cut out and send to school officials, who promise to forward them to school board members.

Here are school officials’ answers to the first two questions:

Question: I would like to know why the students that attend Corriher-Lipe are having to travel a farther distance, according to the redistricting plan, to go to China Grove than they already do to go to Corriher-Lipe, when there are students that attend Corriher-Lipe that are closer to China Grove Middle School than we are.

We are seven miles out of China Grove. You’ll have children 11 and 12 miles out of China Grove attending China Grove when Corriher-Lipe is closer simply because you want to use Highway 152 as your dividing line north and south. Dividing it that way is silly. I would really like to know why, other than the fact that it’s a man-made boundary that’s simple and easy for people to remember.

Answer: Students presently attending Corriher-Lipe, who are proposed to transfer to China Grove Middle, may end up traveling longer distances; however the actual ride time should be no more, and may be even less, than they currently have because Highway 152 gives easy access to China Grove Middle. We are using the highway as a natural dividing line, as we have with other natural boundary markers such as railroads and rivers.

Corriher-Lipe Middle is presently over capacity, and China Grove Middle is under capacity. The need to reassign some China Grove Middle students to Southeast Middle School makes it necessary to transfer some students from Corriher-Lipe to the China Grove Middle attendance area to relieve overcrowding at Corriher-Lipe and to properly utilize the China Grove Middle facility.

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Question: It appears that we are on the edge of the area that would move students from Erwin to Southeast. We are at 800 block of South Main Street in Granite Quarry, about a half-mile from Erwin. If we are in the new district, how is it closer for my child to go to the new middle school than the one that is closer to our home?

I think they need to rethink this whole situation. The people at Summerfield seem to have a similar problem.

Andrea Taylor

Answer: This concerned parent has been contacted by our Transportation Department, and advised that, under the present proposal, her child would attend Southeast Middle School and East Rowan High School. In not all cases will the distance to school be shorter, however, we must look at the number of students who will need to attend each school to adequately utilize the facility. Obviously, there are more students on the other side of Erwin who cannot be reassigned because they would have to travel past Erwin to get to Southeast Middle.