The Pinellas School Board has voted 6-1 to preliminarily approve a plan that will assign students to “close to home” schools next year.

The vote came over the objections of more than a dozen speakers from several community groups who said the plan will hasten a return to racially identifiable schools and negatively impact the achievement gap between black and white students.

Mary Brown, the board’s only black member, cast the dissenting vote. “I am very much against moving this plan forward,” Brown said. “I have said that from the beginning.”

A second vote on the plan is scheduled for Dec. 11.

- Donna Winchester, Times education reporter