In fact, at the time of 03/04 reconfiguration, a bunch of Oakhurst parents spoke up and told the Board that there were tons of babies, toddlers, and preschoolers in the neighborhood that would soon be coming to Oakhurst and they were concerned that Oakhurst would soon not have the capacity that CSD was counting on. This was similar to what parents with young ones were saying all over Decatur. The response from a Board member who has since left was something like “I don’t care how many baby carriages are out there, many of those folks aren’t going to send their kids to public school”. Parents begged the school system to try to find a way to measure existing children in Decatur rather than relying on local hospital births which may work well for population projections in other areas but not in Decatur. So I think at least some of the overenrollment was indeed predictable. Of course, Oakhurst’s continued success and increasing popularity (it would be my first choice if I were moving in right now) influenced enrollment too. Renfroe’s improvements helped and maybe other school improvments too. That’s all a good thing. But it would have been even better if we had used better measurements to predict future enrollement. That’s why we should be sure that all reasonable options have been evaluated going forward. If so, enough said.

My guess is that those posting on this Board about CSD value it and want the best for everyone. If not, they wouldn’t spend their time thinking about issues, posting, and reading. They’d use their energy to either leave Decatur, get into private school, or stay and concentrate on conniving for their own children to get the best of everything, no matter what happened to others.

In ’03, a tiny collection of white families (representing 6-8 kids total) agreed together to look past the snap judgments many made based on race and commit to the school and its leadership. Of these families, the bulk as I recall were not newcomers but had been in the neighborhood since the mid 90s — before they had children.

So where were these droves? They were predominantly gay, single, double-income childless or other risk tolerant people who aren’t presently concerned with schools, that’s who. It wasn’t until the 04/05 school year, when CSD balanced out the schools racially, that Oakhurst became a magnet for families with children. TeeRuss is not saying anything even remotely controversial.