The Lee County School Board decided at last week’s meeting to back away from a redistricting proposal that would have affected some of its districts, including the one for Lehigh Acres.

The proposal was originally presented to the board by the local NAACP in February and sought to redraw the boundaries of the voting districts. Under the plan, some Fort Myers communities like Dunbar would have been moved into District 5 with Lehigh, while current District 5 communities like Alva and Buckingham would have been moved into District 4 with North Fort Myers.

At the March 21 meeting, board attorney Keith Martin informed the board that while he had advised it that the proposal was in good legal standing, a recent Supreme Court decision had changed that.

“In previous advice I had provided to you as a board I advised you that if the NAACP plan met traditional districting criteria that you did have the option of adopting that plan,” he said. “That the consideration of race in taking the action to adopt that redistricting plan would not be prohibited (and) would not subject the board to a higher level of scrutiny as long as the plan did, in fact, meet the traditional redistricting criteria. At this point I need to change that advice.”

Martin explained that the recent Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Board of Elections ruling meant that moving forward with the NAACP plan might make the school district vulnerable to legal action.

He said he could present the board members with an alternative proposal for redistricting the school districts if they wished to continue to pursue the issue, but the board quickly declined the option.

“I think that gets us off track and away from the issue that was before the board in the first place, which was the NAACP plan,” said District 3 Board Member Chris Patricca. “I think that on some level every board member knew that we had the legal authority to redistrict at any time. The only reason that this became an issue before this board was because the NAACP presented a plan.”

Board Members Jane Kuckel, Cathleen Morgan and Steven Teuber agreed that they were uninterested in pursuing the topic further.

Local NAACP President James Muwakkil seemed to anticipate the board’s action when he spoke during the public comments section of the meeting before the final decision was made.

“We have all the facts in order. We have the law on our side,” he said. “We sent you a letter this weekend saying to you the legal ramifications regarding this if you don’t do it. We stand by that. This is a fight to the finish.”

At the March 20 meeting of the Lehigh Acres Community Council, President Rick Angilickis encouraged the community to attend the school board meeting and share its thoughts on how the proposal would affect Lehigh. Despite his suggestion, the majority of people who spoke at the school board meeting during public comment were in favor of the proposed redistricting.