There will be no redistricting in the 2009-2010 school year, according to members of the Howard County Board of Education.

Although school officials consider shuffling students in order to balance school enrollment each year, they do not see a need to shift students until the 2010 school year, members said at their Sept. 4 meeting.

"The signal we're sending is: There's nothing happening (this year)," board chairman Frank Aquino said.

The school board typically makes redistricting decisions in the fall that take effect the following school year.

The board is scheduled to discuss its long-range enrollment projections and redistricting plan at its Oct. 21 meeting at 7:30 p.m.

Although the board had previously anticipated building a new middle school in the western portion of the county in 2013, and has purchased 41 acres of land at the intersection of Route 40 and Marriottsville Road for the school site, it has pushed that plan back several years because residential development in that region has not increased as rapidly as expected.

Now, officials are focusing on anticipated growth in downtown Columbia and in the county's northeast, along the Route 1 corridor, Superintendent Sydney Cousin said.

In an effort to keep all schools enrolled at a level between 90 and 110 percent of their capacity, school planners anticipate redistricting at the following schools, and possibly others, in 2010, according to a study released earlier this year: Bellows Spring, Guilford, Laurel Woods, Phelps Luck, and Thunder Hill elementary schools; Murray Hill Middle School; and Howard and Reservoir high schools.

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