I’ve been looking at houses in Baltimore’s Roland Park school district (along with several thousand others, apparently; there was a line to get into one open house last weekend) and posted a question Sunday about a neighborhood on the outskirts of the boundary to a Facebook mom’s group I belong to. Then one mama dropped this bombshell:

“FYI, the city is looking at rezoning schools. There are meetings happening this spring for community feedback. Not sure how this might affect that area, but I would think places more on the edges may be more at risk [of being rezoned] than those closer” to the school.

Wait — what?!

A quick Google search proved her right. In fact, the fourth of eight information-gathering community meetings took place last night, and the other half will be over by Wednesday. (The school system has also set set up a web page —baltimorecityschools.org/domain/10795 —where you can offer input via questionnaire.)

I knew the system was considering redrawing elementary school boundaries; officials put out an RFP in 2015 in search of companies to conduct a “Rezoning Feasibility Analysis.” But it still felt more like urban legend than eventuality. It’s been decades since the last comprehensive review, and the feasibility study (which cost $248,700, by the way) was behind almost as soon as it was approved; it was supposed to be finished by Sept. 8, according to school board meeting minutes, but that date came and went without any results — or fanfare.

Perhaps the term “feasibility analysis” is keeping media coverage at bay, but make no mistake: This is a big deal, even if a few years off. Changes would likely affect property values and taxes, not to mention the future of the city’s children, perhaps your own. And there’s no doubt they would make some people unhappy — especially those who’ve paid a premium to live in one district and could be zoned out, or who feel that not enough is being done to break down de facto segregation within the system.

Of course, no decisions have been made yet on the best rezoning approach to take, if any — be it redrawing lines, consolidating schools, building new ones or a combination. But there are signals that an overhaul is coming. Today, about a third of the city’s zoned elementary schools are over capacity, according to the school system; there 30 or so kids to a classroom in Roland Park, for example, which has a large district that appears to cover more than its share of the city. (Live Baltimore has put together a handy map on its website.) And 11 percent of schools are significantly under capacity.

New boundaries and school closures would likely even out much of that and bring elementary schools back into line with the coveted neighborhood school model. As a school facilities master plan recommends: “Elementary schools can and should be the anchor of a residential community. And therefore the zone lines need to be based on population and walkability.”

One of the challenges to returning to that model appears to be an unofficial policy of school choice at the elementary school level, however. Middle and high school students in the city can select and apply to their favorite schools regardless of location, unlike elementary school students, who are generally expected to go to their neighborhood’s zoned school if they don’t attend one of a couple of dozen charters.

But in reality, only 59 percent of the city’s 45,000 or so elementary school students attend their zoned, neighborhood schools. And while many of those students attend charter schools, most do not; they’re attending someone else’s zoned school. There are programmatic and policy reasons for that; the student may need a special education program only offered at a certain location, or they may be homeless and therefore not “zoned” anywhere.

A full 10,000 students are attending zoned schools out of zone for a myriad of less official reasons, however — sometimes for the convenience of being closer to a caretaker, or to avoid a bullying situation, but also, undeniably, to gain access to a higher-ranked school. There are long waiting lists at Roland Park and Mt. Washington (I should know, my family is on one), though district level school system officials say they’re not aware of them.

Both of those schools, and many others, get high interest from inside and outside their neighborhoods. One-fifth of the elementary school kids attending Roland Park, where 64 percent of last year’s PARCC test takers passed, are from out of zone, according to data I requested from the school system. At Hampden Elementary (41 percent passing), 36 percent of the students are out of zone; at Thomas Johnson (44 percent passing), it’s 65 percent; at Leith Walk (15 percent), it’s 20 percent; at Gilmor (6 percent passing), it’s 40 percent.

Such transfers are supposed to be based on needs and space, according to school transfer policy, though some have squeezed into crowded schools. And many parents are grateful for the spots, even if they go against the neighborhood model. With a rising kindergartner, my fingers are crossed we’ll get one, though I know it’s a moonshot.

In the meantime, I’ll keep house shopping. But from now on, I’ll stick to the immediate area around our favorite schools — just in case.

Tricia Bishop is The Sun's deputy editorial page editor. Her column runs every other Friday. Her email is tricia.bishop@baltsun.com; Twitter: @triciabishop.