At the first meeting on proposed zoning changes for Metro Schools, many parents in the Antioch cluster said that rezoning some of their schools won’t alleviate overcrowding.

The Antioch Cluster is being split so the new Cane Ridge high school will anchor a new cluster by the same name just to the west. Antioch High School, including the 9th grade academy, has about 26-hundred students. School officials hope the rezoning will bring enrollment down to about 19-hundred-50 kids.

Yvonne Sawyer is the grandmother of a seventh grader. She says rezoning isn’t a solution.

“Unless we can get the city, when they give the city the permits to builders to say ok, ‘you’re going to build so many units it’s a necessity, you must build a school to go with it,’ we’re still going to be in this problem year after year. And who wants their kid to be in a portable.”

The city does require large sub-division builders to set aside land for new schools, but the district has to fund them.

For other parents like Amy Baker, the issue is emotional. She graduated from Antioch High and bought a house in the Antioch cluster so her daughter could attend. But a few years ago, she was rezoned out and now, she’s thinking about selling her house to get back in.

“You know the Antioch community is tight-knit and long-term. There’s a lot of new people in here, but there’s a lot of people whose children are going to this school because they’ve stayed in the area, because they believe in the area, because their parents and their grandparents lived here.”

Others at the meeting were concerned by what was not included in the rezoning proposal-they say Una Elementary should be reassigned to the Antioch cluster. Una currently feeds into McGavock High, but parents say that school is too far away.

The district has also proposed closing five schools, which it says will allow it to use resources more effectively. The five schools are Brookmeade and Gateway elementary, and Dalewood, Ewing Park, and McKissack middle schools. Parent meetings will be held in all areas of the county through November, before the School Board makes a final decision in December.