Voting districts

for the Fayette County Board of Education for the coming decade cleared

their first hurdle toward ultimate approval Monday night.

The board itself

approved the new districts, which changed little from the previous map,

unanimously at its regular meeting. The districts must now be approved

New districts

must be approved every ten years, after each new federal census.

The new map

does not affect any sitting board member. Under the county's current system,

board members are elected at-large by the entire county but must live

in the posts they represent.

The number

of board members will remain unchanged at five. There has been talk in

the community of increasing that number, possibly to seven, but the board

has not officially discussed that issue.

To change the

number of members on the board or the way they are elected, such as electing

them wholly within their districts, would first require action by the

Georgia General Assembly and then a countywide referendum during a state

election year (even-numbered year), DeCotis said.

Using a population

figure of 91,263 for the county, the five districts were divided as follows:

Post 1, 18,214

total population, 1,119 (6.14 percent) black, 530 (2.91 percent) Hispanic

or Latino.

Post 2, 17,585

total population, 1,246 (7.09 percent) black, 358 (2.04 percent) Hispanic

or Latino.

Post 3, 18,320

total population, 932 (5.09 percent) black, 746 (4.07 percent) Hispanic

or Latino.

Post 4, 19,051

total population, 2,494 (13.09 percent) black, 483 (2.54 percent) Hispanic

or Latino.

Post 5, 18,093

total population, 4,674 (25.83 percent) black, 465 (2.57 percent) Hispanic

or Latino.

Post 4 gained

798 in total population, while Post 3 gained 67. Post 2 saw a drop of

668, while Post 5 lost 160 and Post 1 fell by 39.