Worries about the timeline were also raised Monday night at an unofficial meeting held at Albert Hill Middle School, during which parents from Mary Munford Elementary School, which would be combined with John B. Cary Elementary School in one option, voiced mixed support about the idea.

“There’s a concern that there’s a rush to do this in this timeline and it’s not going to be done well,” a Munford parent said Wednesday night.

Matthew Cropper, the consultant hired by the district to help lead the rezoning process, said Wednesday that the district’s timeline is “common.”

The school system has three new schools scheduled to open in the fall of 2020. One new school, E.S.H. Greene, is being built to house 1,000 students and alleviate some severe overcrowding in the South Side.

Still, a special rezoning committee appointed by the School Board has said the process alone won’t fix overcrowding south of the James River.

“All the schools are overcrowded so there’s not much we can do,” Cropper said. “The new construction is not going to provide all the relief that [Richmond] needs.”

The average capacity of the elementary schools south of the James is over 100%.