We all remember the first, daunting day of elementary school.  Sometimes, the only reassurance was coming back to the school that we went to the year before. Next year, some of Madison’s elementary school kids’ first day is going to get scarier.  As reported by WHNT news earlier this month, Madison City School officials gathered to discuss the rezoning of Madison’s elementary schools.  The most affected schools will be Columbia Elementary and Mill Creek Elementary.

Only 4 years have passed since Mill Creek Elementary opened to relieve the growing problem of overcrowding in the Madison City School system.  With the opening of Mill Creek came the rearranging of the school zone lines.

While these lines technically may be a series of dots on a grid, to a child, rezoning may cause anxiety due to having to change schools.  “It made me really sad because I left all my friends and my favorite teachers…and I was really scared the first day because I didn’t know where anything was,” described Sammie Adkins, a junior, when asked about changing schools due to rezoning when in the third grade.

According to the Madison City School website, school board member Phil Schmidt explained that “Rezoning is coming. People are going to have to warm up to it. We don’t have much of a choice.”

The new zoning lines will be announced during Spring Break, but until then, the elementary schools await new splits that students at Bob Jones felt with the opening of James Clemens.