Members of the Anne Arundel County school board inched closer this week to final approval of a redistricting plan designed to relieve overcrowding that will send far fewer students to new schools than other schemes the district considered.

The latest plan affects as many as 780 students across the South County, a third of whom live in Crofton. Some children who would otherwise matriculate from Nantucket Elementary to Crofton Middle and High School will be routed to Arundel Middle and High School instead.

Wednesday’s board meeting at times grew tense, as some members snapped at others.

The board is set to take a final vote later this month and implement the plan next school year.

Annapolis and Edgewater families who turned out in droves to testify against versions of the plan that would have impacted their children were elated to learn they would escape disruption. Crofton and Riva families who have criticized the redistricting process as unfair and opaque were frustrated. Some were furious.

Crofton mom Kristen Caminiti said she opposes the plan the board endorsed Wednesday on a 5-3 vote because reassigning only some Nantucket Elementary students suggests they don’t belong in their own community. She also fears Arundel Middle and High School will soon become overcrowded, too.

Caminiti said the section of Crofton where she lives is more diverse than homogenous parts of the community that won’t be touched by redistricting. She expressed frustration that parents and students in her neighborhood who have repeatedly turned out to board meetings and said, “this is bad, please don’t do it,” haven’t been listened to.

The district considered but ultimately discarded schemes that would have impacted some Davidsonville families and some students assigned to Crofton Woods Elementary.

Bob Mosier, a spokesperson for the district, said he could not comment on the rationale behind any board member’s vote.

Caminiti stressed that no Crofton children should need to switch schools. She was one among dozens of parents and students who testified against the plan at a pair of public hearings held earlier this week and last week that stretched on for hours and featured more than 150 speakers in total.

Since February, when the district sought public comment on three school redistricting scenarios developed by an outside consultant called WXY, the number of students at risk of switching schools has declined, increasing the chance that the painful process will need to be repeated in the years ahead as the county’s population grows.

One of the consultant’s scenarios would have impacted more than 3,000 students. And the plan unveiled this summer by Superintendent Mark Bedell would have affected up to 1,500 children.

Board members disagreed on whether to reassign some Nantucket Elementary children to new middle and high schools and whether rising fifth graders, eighth graders and juniors should be allowed to stay at their current schools.

Vivian Hack, an Edgewater Elementary fifth grader who testified at Monday’s public hearing, told board members that she is excited and a little nervous to enter middle school next year.

“I want to experience this big change with the people I grew up with,” she said.

Although board members agreed on some elements of the plan they advanced, they clashed over others.

Board member Gloria Dent said some Crofton families would need to switch schools to relieve overcrowding at Crofton Middle and High Schools. She said she considers the proposal to shift some Nantucket Elementary students the best option because it is the least disruptive. Other Crofton options would have impacted more children and more schools. Board member Sarah McDermott argued that the Crofton community deserves to be whole.

Board members Dana Schallheim and Joanna Bache Tobin sparred over how many students the board should exempt from the plan. Schallheim supports more generous exemptions. Bache Tobin said she opposes them because transportation would not be provided for those students, so only some could take advantage of the flexibility.

Other key provisions of the latest plan include exempting families in Edgewater from being reassigned to Annapolis schools, blocking families in Annapolis from new school assignments within the city, and allowing some families from Central and Waugh Chapel elementary schools to stay put.

The board also rejected a proposal to send roughly 400 students from Annapolis High to South River High, and retained a scheme to send 27 children from Davidsonville Elementary to Central Elementary, the district’s newest five-star school.

The board will hold a public briefing on the plan on Nov. 12. Then the board will hold public hearings on Nov. 13 and 17. A final vote is scheduled for Nov. 19.