Boundary OK only first step: Daily Herald 02/21/08

[WeBe204]

wvhsparent said:

brad204 said:

Yeah, I heard that too. I was thinking they were going to announce it at the beginning of the meeting. But that would have very much added the gasoline to the fire.

Really? This is the 1st I have heard of it. I thought the one article said they were hoping to close in March or April, after Phase 2 is done.

Yeah, one of my neighbors told me when we were sitting down at the beginning of the meeting. It made me laugh in a cynical (and sad) sort of way every time someone stood up to say slow down. I was thinking you are asking slow down when we are currently flying at Warp 9.0 speed and you do not even know it.

I said it before. Like the Dash or not but that guy can make stuff happen. He is a master.

[rural]

avengingeagle said:

rural said:

I agree. There were just as many for sale signs popping up in the neighborhoods around me after the last vote. I feel bad for any of the families that actually moved to Fry or White Eagle so they wouldn't be in an overcrowded WV.

However, the people in the south didn't make a peep about the poor kids at WV who were going to be crammed in like sardines when the new school opened. They were too busy patting the Board memebers on the back for such a good job with boundaries and the eminent domain lawsuit. So much so, that they re-elected them.

The people in the south also kept slaves back in the 1800s, but that is history that we have to move past.

I didn't live here when this happened, and my kids weren't born yet, so please do not try to punish them or me, for something that others may have done long ago.

I believe that we can attribute the bad moves of the SB to 3 main categories:

1. To punish neighborhoods and certain individuals because of grudges and the sins of both the recent and distant past.
2. To satisfy the personal interests and whims of SB members and other district officials at the expense of the dissenting majority (75 - 80% against).
3. Incompetence of Dash who visits districts and takes them down like a plague of locusts on a crop, and then moves on to the next one.

Oh, please. I'm so sorry. The people in the south end of District 204. Is that better? I have lived in this district pre-NVHS. I have been paying property taxes all that time also.

While WVHSP may agree with you on three, I don't. We talk about hindsight being 20/20, do you really think he would have taken this job knowing the crapstorm he was going to have to live through? I give the man credit for not packing his bags in the middle of the night and leaving town.

[gatordog]

AE, you have gone into full fledged tinfoil hat mode! Maybe you can write Ch 2 about the sins of Owen West and Gombert East to explain their boundaries!

OK, you say conspiracy. Lets think if there might be other possible explainations for some of your items.

avengingeagle said:

A couple examples of category 2:
1. Owen W and Watts are being sent to MVHS so that SB members' home regions of Steck and McCarty can stay at WVHS, even though it doesn't make geographical, achievement balancing, and enrollment number sense.
2. Springbrook will not go to WVHS instead of Fry because a board member lives there, even though Fry is right across the street from NVHS and Springbrook is bused anyway.
...
4. A Zozulia was pulled on Fry to guarantee that Welch doesn't go to WVHS instead of Fry even though they are alot closer.

1. Concerning Steck and Mcc not going to MV, I believe one can also make a pretty good argument that in fact makes geographical sense. Also, this would have split two more ES's. Quite tough splits at that....not-so-easy-to-draw lines through contiguous neighborhoods.
2. Concerning a Springbrook (and also Watts) HS assigment, its possible that a factor was to avoid splitting more MSs.
4. Independent of any memo, its possible that Welch was viewed as an easier walking area to NV given that there are many walks << 1 mi and fewer complications of worrying about teenagers taking less-safe short cuts.


Just throwing out some alternative, explanations.

[d204mom]

rural said:

We talk about hindsight being 20/20, do you really think he would have taken this job knowing the crapstorm he was going to have to live through? I give the man credit for not packing his bags in the middle of the night and leaving town.

Please, Louisville was no piece of cake. His bad judgement there is well documented. Don't get our hopes up. He only leaves when people finally wake up and elect 4 new board members. And it's not by choice.

We are going to start paying the heavy price for his bad judgement this August, when those Longwood kids step on the bus to be shipped across the district to schools that will soon be losing their art and music rooms to the same bad judgement and impatience.

[fryfox]

warriorpride said:

avengingeagle said:

Its the unscientific Sun Poll from the other day:

key word: unscientific - and, what was said at the SB meeting prior to the boundary meeting: most polls & feedback tend to lean towards the negative feedback (i.e. the vocal minority)

I'd say that the 40% of the district that goes to NV probably is OK with all this. And, of WV and MV, probably more than 50% (and possibly closer to 75-80%) at each is OK, so my unscientific guess is more like AT LEAST 60% of 204 is OK with this, and it's likely closer to 80% or more

And yet, when BG used the results of the SB's survey monkey poll to confirm support for the new site, that 70% was completely acceptable and scientific. That's hilarious. (not)

[momto4]

southsidemom said:

warriorpride said:

key word: unscientific - and, was said at the SB meeting prior to the boundary meeting - most polls & feedback tend to lean towards the negative feedback

I'd say that the 40% of the district that goes to NV probably is OK with all this. And, of WV and MV, probably more than 50% (and possibly closer to 75-80%) at each is OK, so my unscientific guess is more like AT LEAST 60% of 204 is OK with this, and it's likely closer to 80% or more

As people learn more and more the tension will rise. Friend in Harris Farm thrilled about new school and big advocate is now pssed to learn her kids will be split with one in 9th and one in 11th and no grandfathering. Working mom with traveling spouse. Not happy anymore.

Why is this a problem? We are similarly split in my household and I don't see it as being very different from the year before when one is in WV and one is in Granger. MV is closer to Harris Farm than Granger anyway.

I'd be surprised if anyone in Brooks area is truly upset to have a new HS so much closer to us than WV, sad as it is to leave WV. While I am upset for those who have to travel further to HS than they do now, I am still happy for those whose commutes are significantly shortened.

The main reason for much of the "no" vote in this area was that people did not think they were seeing any gain from this referendum (which I disagreed with vehemently, we would all see the gain of less crowded schools after the first couple of years).

[rural]

d204mom said:

We are going to start paying the heavy price for his bad judgement this August, when those Longwood kids step on the bus to be shipped across the district to schools that will soon be losing their art and music rooms to the same bad judgement and impatience.

Are you kidding me. This district should have had all day kindergarten 10 years ago.

[fryfox]

southsidemom said:

So I found out the AME contract got signed Tuesday night yet land testing is not done. Makes no sense and today's Herald article confirms it. Rush rush rush.

Shouldn't this be public record, if in fact it did get signed?

[fryfox]

warriorpride said:

southsidemom said:

As people learn more and more the tension will rise. Friend in Harris Farm thrilled about new school and big advocate is now pssed to learn her kids will be split with one in 9th and one in 11th and no grandfathering. Working mom with traveling spouse. Not happy anymore.

these kinds of splits and other kinds of splits were going to happen, regardless of the MV location - it's just matter of which groups of people are impacted

not true. They could have been avoided.

[fryfox]

warriorpride said:

wvhsparent said:

Really? This is the 1st I have heard of it. I thought the one article said they were hoping to close in March or April, after Phase 2 is done.

perhaps that referred to the MWGEN parcel?

Why would they be signing off on any parcel of the land without having the results for the entire site?

[momto4]

fryfox said:

warriorpride said:

these kinds of splits and other kinds of splits were going to happen, regardless of the MV location - it's just matter of which groups of people are impacted

not true. They could have been avoided.

Only by - opening the new school with all four grades - bad idea! Or by grandfathering in siblings of kids in WV or NV and having them provide their own transportation. The grandfathering could wind up being a tremendous number of kids greatly affecting the student numbers at all three schools and the district is best served, IMO, by not doing that.

[fryfox]

gatordog said:

AE, you have gone into full fledged tinfoil hat mode! Maybe you can write Ch 2 about the sins of Owen West and Gombert East to explain their boundaries!

OK, you say conspiracy. Lets think if there might be other possible explainations for some of your items.

avengingeagle said:

A couple examples of category 2:
1. Owen W and Watts are being sent to MVHS so that SB members' home regions of Steck and McCarty can stay at WVHS, even though it doesn't make geographical, achievement balancing, and enrollment number sense.
2. Springbrook will not go to WVHS instead of Fry because a board member lives there, even though Fry is right across the street from NVHS and Springbrook is bused anyway.
...
4. A Zozulia was pulled on Fry to guarantee that Welch doesn't go to WVHS instead of Fry even though they are alot closer.

1. Concerning Steck and Mcc not going to MV, I believe one can also make a pretty good argument that in fact makes geographical sense. Also, this would have split two more ES's. Quite tough splits at that....not-so-easy-to-draw lines through contiguous neighborhoods.
2. Concerning a Springbrook (and also Watts) HS assigment, its possible that a factor was to avoid splitting more MSs.
4. Independent of any memo, its possible that Welch was viewed as an easier walking area to NV given that there are many walks << 1 mi and fewer complications of worrying about teenagers taking less-safe short cuts.


Just throwing out some alternative, explanations.

Sorry, gatordog, but it's clear to me that splits were in actuality of no concern to the admin or the SB. It is ridiculous for them to say they couldn't have done this without splits. As some posters a few weeks ago were demonstrating, you could start by redrawing the ES lines that don't make sense. They minimally did this. If they would have taken a top down approach - HS boundaries first, then MS, then ES, they could have made it all work. They just manipulated things to make their initial idea work and make everyone on the board and admin happy. It's so transparent.

[d204mom]

rural said:

d204mom said:

We are going to start paying the heavy price for his bad judgment this August, when those Longwood kids step on the bus to be shipped across the district to schools that will soon be losing their art and music rooms to the same bad judgment and impatience.

Are you kidding me. This district should have had all day kindergarten 10 years ago.

At what price all day kindergarten?

I'm all for a well thought out plan that takes into account SPACE CONCERNS. This ADK thing was a half-baked plan from the get-go. Slammed through even though the head of the teacher's union spoke against increasing the 1-5 class sizes to accommodate it. I guess the head of the teacher's union has some agenda to KEEP the district from hiring MORE teachers.

[fryfox]

Additionally, I am stunned that these SB members are not concerned to have their rubber stamp on this site and the boundaries they created for years and years to come. MV is not even serving it's purpose now at 2,450 kids with a capacity of 3,000. Why? Because they can't send any more kids without giving them an even more ridiculous commute than Watts and Cowlishaw already has. This problem is not going to improve, it's going to get worse. In 20-30 years they'll end up closing our newest point of pride because no one will be willing to commute there. When everyone looks back and says who were the bozo's who did this? These SB members and their families can live with the shame of it all.

[rural]

d204mom said:

rural said:

Are you kidding me. This district should have had all day kindergarten 10 years ago.

At what price all day kindergarten?

I'm all for a well thought out plan that takes into account SPACE CONCERNS. This ADK thing was a half-baked plan from the get-go. Slammed through even though the head of the teacher's union spoke against increasing the 1-5 class sizes to accommodate it. I guess the head of the teacher's union has some agenda to KEEP the district from hiring MORE teachers.

Like I said: This district should have had all day kindergarten 10 years ago! But maybe you're right and we should wait another 10 years.