The Putnam County Board of Education has announced the district for the new Teays Valley Elementary School, and many parents are not happy.

Students who reside between South Poplar Fork Road on the east and U.S. 60 on the south will attend the new school as well as students to the west between U.S. 50 on the south, Interstate 64 to the north, and 3751 Teays Valley Road.

According to Superintendent of Schools Harold "Chuck" Hatfield, Teays Valley Elementary School students will then attend Hurricane Middle and High Schools.

That development doesn't sit well with many parents who want their children to attend Winfield High School.

"Our family is deeply rooted in the Winfield school district, as well as Winfield sports," Denise Sneeringer told the Charleston Gazette. She is the mother of a fourth-grader at Scott Teays and two students at Winfield Middle. "For my family, it doesn’t just affect my elementary student. It affects the entire family, because I will not be splitting my family between two different school districts. Asking families to consider that is just not right, and it’s unfair."

Sneeringer wants the Board of Education to allow siblings to attend the same middle and high schools.

"I do not have a problem with the proposed boundaries for the new elementary school," says parent Steve Hoffman. "I think that it is a fair and manageable boundary. My only objection is that the (new) school is going to be a Hurricane-only feeder school, so unless there are grandfather clauses or other exceptions allowed then I will have one child at Winfield and one at Hurricane."

Hatfield says there are no plans to transfer students from Winfield schools to Hurricane schools. However, many parents are not satisfied with that. They say they bought homes with the understanding that they would have a choice of where their teenagers would attend high school. Hatfield says that choice has never been an official district policy.

The issue of districting and Winfield High School isn't a new one. Several years ago Board of Education President Sid Linville attempted to redistrict the Pliny and Fraziers Bottom area so that students would attend Buffalo High School. Parents protested, one parent, Randy Tucker sued, and the issue was dropped. Ultimately voters tossed Linville from the board over his idea.

It isn't that district officials don't want students to attend Winfield High School, there simply isn't enough room, says Principal Bill Hughes. His newly-expanded campus is once-again over-populated with students.

"I still have teachers without classrooms," Hughes told PutnamLIVE.com earlier this year. "The population is growing faster than we can expand."

Hurricane High School and Hurricane Middle School also recently expanded and have more room for students than in Winfield, which is why district officials want to send students there.

The new $10.8 million Teays Elementary School is under construction but won't open until next year. About 400 students are expected to attend the new school. Parents are hoping they will be able to convince the Board of Education to set a flexible policy by then.