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At an emotionally charged meeting, Katy Independent School District trustees on Monday voted 5-2 to relocate some 1,200 junior high pupils to different campuses for the next school year.

One pupil wept after the trustees approved attendance-zone changes primarily designed to relieve crowding at Beck and McDonald junior high schools.

The changes come as the district prepares to open its eighth junior high school. Katy will transfer 281 pupils living south of Interstate 10 from Katy Junior High School to the new school, which is in Cinco Ranch.

The change will be a blow to Katy Junior High, which will lose volunteers and funds when the Pin Oak and Falcon Point communities are rezoned for Junior High 8, said trustee Robert Shaw, who joined Eric Duhon in voting against the changes.

"It's not fair to the principal, to the kids and to the teachers who will remain there after everyone's gone," he said.

But trustee Jackie Birkel said the other option presented to the board didn't make sense, including one that would move pupils form the McDonald campus, which is North of Interstate 10, south to Junior High 8.

"At some point, the communities of Pin Oak and Falcon Point will have to be rezoned. It's inevitable," Birkel said.

Before the vote, trustees heard opinions from 15 speakers- the maximum allowed under board policy. Between 50 and 60 parents attended the meeting in the district administration building.

Katy Elementary pupil Stephanie Taylor wept at the prospect of losing classmates to the new junior high school.

"All I want for Christmas is something that only you, as a board member, can give me," she said.

Dana Witt, a resident of Pin Oak Village and father of three students attending district schools, supported the district's plan.

" My wife and I moved here not necessarily for Katy Elementary and Katy Junior High School, but for the Katy Independent School District," Witt said. "KISD is known for its district wide excellence. I personally was rezoned three times during elementary school, and I don't think it had any adverse affect on me."

But Linda Peace, a resident of Pine Oak village and mother of two pupils in the district, opposed the approved plan.

She noted that the district's rezoning committee had been divided 10-4 in voting to recommend the plan, which is named Option 1.

"You're moving kids from a school that's not overcrowded yet-Katy-because of another one that is," Peace said. "The board should have been looking at building Junior High 9 north of the freeway at the same time it looked at zoning for Junior High 8."

District plans call for Junior High 9 to open north of I-10 at the corner of Franz and Mason Roads in 2003.

The Option 1 plan approved by trustees moves some pupils form McDonald, Katy, Beck and West Memorial junior high schools.

To relieve crowding at McDonald, 384 pupils form that school will be moved next year to Katy Junior High, which is north of I-10.

Enrollment to Junior High 8 [McMeans JH] also will include 560 pupils now living in the attendance zone for Beck and 46 from the West Memorial area south of Interstate 10.

Option I was created after the committee developed several alternative plans and reviewed at least two plans submitted by parents.

The plan will provide relief for Beck and McDonald and makes the most geographic sense, said Tom Crowe, the rezoning committee's chairman.

"No one will have to cross a freeway to attend junior high," he told trustees at a previous work session.

The zoning changes are required not only to accommodate Junior High 8 (McMeans JH), but also because two new elementary schools located north of I-10 are slated to begin classes next year, Crowe said.