School redistricting wrap-up

Honestly, if your piece were any more one-sided I fear my laptop would fall over.  Perhaps if you spent more time researching and attending the meetings and less time throwing around allegations of racism, then your efforts might come across in a more balanced manner.The CHCCSS was a broken process from the beginning.  Todd LoFrese and his Excel minions essentially came up with 2 plans.  Plans 1-3 were all basically the same while Plan 4 provided for community schools.  It's important to note that all 4 plans offered a reduction in variability in SES, at-risk, reading and math compared to the current plan.  Thus, even Plan 4 was going to be an improvement in approaching the diversity values that we in CH hold dear (using the broken process that Todd established).Once those plans were developed, Todd headed up the Advisory Council Meetings which essentially gave a select group of parents an opportunity to see the plans and make minor changes.  Lip service at its best.  You can see evidence of the impotence of these meeting most clearly by comparing any of the final plan versions to their earlier iterations.  I was there.  Their voice was muted or non-existent.  This point was also clearly articulated by one of the AC's own members at least 2 of the board meetings.Once this song and dance was completed, Todd then presented the plans to the full board for review.  Then, it came time for the public hearings where the overwhelming majority of public comments were in favor of Plan 4.1.  The speakers came from across Chapel Hill, not just 74A.  It's actually a shame so many of the other voices were diluted by the banality of the 74A approach, but 74A did the work to get people out so kudos to them.  You criticize the citizenry for coming up with their own plans, but you failed to point out that Todd created these plans without using optimization software, using a proxy variable for SES status that Todd admitted was poor, and using distance to the school as a variable without considering the actual time it takes to get there.  On their own, each of these represents a failure on the part of the administration to do their due diligence.  Taken together, it's egregious and infuriating that our children would be subjected to the whims of this poor of a process.    With this in mind it's no wonder the citizens attempted to cobble together an alternative plan.  It's also no surprise they failed since the administration refused to share data even anonymized data with them.  I mean why would the administration want to leverage the brainprower of one of the most highly educated cities per capita in the United States to right the wrongs they were about to perpetrate on our children, right?  Actually, if my data was as bad as theirs, I would probably try to hide it too.I felt sympathy for board members Michelle Brownstein,  James Barrett, and Mike Kelley who actually seemed invested in improving the process and creating the best plan for all families, but they were hamstrung by the administration's tight timelines and refusal to go back and do the real work necessary to appropriately define their key variables and build a plan from them.  One can only hope that the board tries to improve the process for next time and that those who oversee transfer requests display empathy for the plight that so many parents have been put in by this travesty.I also share your hope that now that the dust has settled, we can work together on making ALL of our schools into great learning communities, especially since you will be shoulder-to-shoulder with me as our kids attend Northside Elementary together. At least I know whom to vote for and against in the next election though.  Heck, maybe I'll still be mad enough to run myself.

The Chapel Hill School district is arguably the best in the state, and the differences between schools are small.  The town is so compact, that even being bussed to a different "far away" school will have little impact on a child's development. As a parent I think its a mistake to try and make every aspect of a child's life perfect. First its impossible, and second, it robs children of the opportunity to learn how to approach a less than ideal solution and turn it to their own advantage.If I may be permitted the luxury of a personal example, growing up in the country I had a 45 minute bus ride each way to school through all of elementary and middle, and it got longer in high school.   I used that time to read the most wonderful books, and the 1.5 hours of solid reading a day catapulted my reading skills to the point I was going through at least an adult novel a week.  The supposedly horrible bus ride turned out to be a major reason for my later success in school and in life. Children are not only resilant, but will benefit from learning that change can be good, and they can thrive no matter what.  That just may be the most important lesson they learn in school.  

Redistricting in Chapel Hill is really sad.  My neighborhood south of 54 was redistricted to Northside, which is a crazy long bus ride.  However, we're not complaining because I know of not one child in my segment who will attend.  That's because our neighborhood got trashed last time around when we were redistricted to FPG.  My family gave FPG a chance, but the damage they did to my son's education in one year was unforgivable.  When he got accepted to Woods Charter, moving him was a no-brainer.  Now days, few kids around here go to the same school and they hardly know each other.  It really damaged the community.FPG's regular school program failed to educate it's kids to No Child Left Behind standards, so the school board closed it down.  They should have learned something from this.  FPG failed because of the high poverty rate created from a bad redistricting plan in 2008.  Instead of learning from their mistakes, they designed Northside to be an at-risk school from the beginning, with a large poor population in it's walk zone.  I hope I'm wrong, but one look at the redistricting map should set off alarm bells.  Northside's district looks like a six-slice pizza, with every other slice missing.  Expecting kids in those far-flung slices to show up is wishful thinking.So, when you hear 74A complain about the bus ride, don't listen. They've got it easy.  However, grieve with them over the incredible loss they will face as their community fragments. Grieve for kids FPG let down, and for the kids Northside is likely to let down as it's crushed by the poverty that will remain once middle class kids leave. Be upset that your children will suffer in middle and high school as their teachers focus on helping poorly educated kids from FPG and Northside.  Feel for all those parents in 74A who are desperately trying to figure out how to afford private school while saving for college.  Grieve for the loss of the state's best school district as we continue to drive parents who care about education away.  And then... vote for a school board with a clue!