Wake school board preparing to redraw at least 7 board electoral districts

All but two Wake County Board of Education electoral districts will need to be redrawn based on the 2020 Census.

A consultant will develop three different plans for new districts, published publicly, and will hold a public meeting on them. The board will make the final vote on the new electoral district boundaries.

The redistricting is only for electoral boundary lines; it does not affect where students would be assigned to attend school. It would affect only which areas of Wake County the board members would represent.

The new district lines would go into effect for the 2022 election, in which all nine seats are up for election. Filing for those positions opens in June.

The seven districts that must be redrawn are 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9. They either have too many people or not enough, based on the county’s new population total.

Per the 2020 Census data released this year, Wake County’s population topped 1.1 million. Divided by the number of districts, each should have 125,490 residents or, by law, fall within 5 percentage points of that figure.

Districts located in the center of the county, in and around Raleigh — 4, 5, 6 and 9 — generally fall short of that criteria in the new Census data. The northeasternmost district — 3 — also falls short.

Districts 1 and 8 — the easternmost and westernmost, respectively — far exceeded the ideal number of residents. Those districts include some for he fastest-growing towns in the Wake County: Apex, Holly Springs, Rolesville and Wake Forest, among other towns.

District 2, which includes Fuquay-Varina, is represented by Monika Johnson-Hostler.

District 7, which includes Morrisville, is represented by Chris Heagarty.

Wake County generally leans heavily democratic. Seven of the board members are Democrats and two — Roxie Cash, of District 3, and Karen Carter, of District 9 — are Republicans.