CSD’s Official Note on Redistricting Work Session
Decatur Metro | October 11, 2010Posted on the City Schools of Decatur website…
The Board will hold a Worksession on Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 5:30 pm to begin a month of discussion regarding the Redistricting Maps for K-3 schools. This Worksession allows Board members to hear information and ask questions, but there is not a time for public comment. The Board will set two dates for Board listening sessions that will happen over the next 30 days before the intended final vote on a preferred map at the regularly-scheduled Board meeting on November 9, 2010. Once these listening sessions are scheduled, the dates will be broadly communicated to the Decatur community.
The 7 maps being considered can be viewed at http://fiscalresearch.gsu.edu/decatur/. For community members that would rather read a narrative description of the enrollment zone, these details will be posted shortly before the Worksession.
Following the Board meeting, the individual map websites will be activated to include a comment box. All comments will be aggregated and compiled for the Board to consider.
Dr. Edwards has published a memo to the Board detailing the process and the assumptions underlying this future work.
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I see that Options 6 and 7 drastically change the racial makeup of Oakhurst Elementary, versus 1 – 5. Given the appearance of a gerrymandered congressional district, it seems that these options are going out of their way to pull in a very specific portion of the Decatur community to Oakhurst. If the goal is to keep certain folks grouped (African-Americans) then I say this works pretty well. If the goal is to design the racial makeup of the schools in a way that reflects the racial makeup of Decatur (70/30 white to non-white versus 50/50) then I say it fails. Caveat: I don’t know the current makeup of Oakhurst Elementary.
For all my time here I have heard about racial tolerance and “community.” It looks like that may be fine for all the taxpaying adults, as long as their children can attend a school that more closely mirrors their view of a properly proportioned community.
I realize that this is only a concern in the Kindergarten and grades 1 – 3, but the fact of the matter is that if my children attend Oakhurst Elementary options 6 and 7 do not reflect the true makeup of Decatur. Not of my street, nor of the city as a whole. Dr. Edwards supports this option. I suspect at least 70 percent of the parents in the remaining 3 elementary school districts will as well.
If you read the other threads regarding the zone Options, I think you’ll see that folks are not just thinking about what’s good for their own children but struggling with all the different factors and trade-offs involved in the 7 Options. Be sure and indicate your preferences and reasons to the Board and Superintendent at Public Comment sessions or directly in person or by phone, mail, or email. You can even suggest better options if you can design any. There may be some “in the know” or among the “powers that be” that are behind the scenes strategizing, deliberately or less consciously–there’s always some of that in real life–but I’m not feeling that there is a general attempt in the community or neighborhoods to engineer the schools so as to make certain folks comfortable. No secret emails, secret blogs or listservs, attempts to discredit points of view, attempts to label or demonize anyone…..at least that I know of.
I’m with Wonderbread on this one. The school board has shown before that it will bow to the wishes of well-to-do Clairmont parents — who I’m sure would be quite pleased by options 6 & 7, which shift public housing kids out of their school.
It’s easy to make fun, and call it a conspiracy theory, but it’s a reality in politics that money talks -even at the local level.
I’m just saying that I heard and saw (retroactively) the emails and listservs back in the day, the previous reconfiguration. Not seeing or hearing that now. If you have a point of view about Options 1-7, speak up loud and often now, and not just here on this blog. But don’t get into this school vs. that school. Not only does it become unpleasantly divisive in our community, but it’s one of the most effective techniques politically–divide and conquer! Many, many, many folks were concerned about the projections and options presented in 2003-2004. But the Clairemont vs Westchester closing distracted everyone from the real issues.
Wonder Bread, are you saying that maps 6 and 7 would change the racial makeup from 50/50 white-non white to 70/30 white-nonwhite?
Any news to report from last night?
I was at the meeting last night and the consultant recommended either map 4 or 7, partly because they would pave the way for re-opening Westchester. However, it doesn’t sound like that would be a good option since only 4 classrooms would be needed at Westchester in the foreseeable future, according to him.
Personally, I think a key issue here is free and reduced lunch students. I don’t believe the school board or members of the public can make an informed decision without knowing (or giving the public) those numbers. We should be aiming at an even distribution of lower-income kids as well as racial diversity.
Looking at option #7, which apparently is favored by the superintendent, you can guess that there would be many more free and reduced lunch students at Oakhurst than there are now. However, the numbers would tell us for sure.
I agree that the data about free/reduced lunch students by elementary school needs to be compiled if it isn’t already, shared, and considered. Or any other proxy for family income that the school system has. The problem may be that this year’s data are not officially compiled yet. So why not use last year’s? And if that’s not acceptable–too much change this year–then let’s use preliminary data from this year. There must be accounts of which kids are allowed to get free/reduced lunch. The lunch ladies (I have no idea why there’s no lunch men–too low pay?) check everyone in at the hot lunch and milk counters. We’re a small enough system that someone could collect the free/reduced lunch lists for the three current elementary schools and College Heights, check the grade level from a school or system roster, put the information in a table, and then add up row and column totals with a calculator. The preliminary data might not be perfect but it should be useful for the purpose of prediction.