Last month the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board decided on the new school districts that will go into effect as we open our eleventh elementary school this fall. I was always aware that these school reassignment discussions were contentious, but now that my son will be starting kindergarten in 2014, I'm trying to learn a lot more about how our coveted educational sausage is made. Since my neighborhood was assigned to the walk zone of the brand-new Northside Elementary, I was able to wade deeper into the mucky reassignment debate without having much personal investment in the outcome.
I think the board did the right thing in choosing the plan that did the best job of distributing racial and economic diversity. But the process is inherently impossible. There is simply no way to put everyone in the school they want without inconveniencing someone else. In this post I attempt to briefly summarize how the whole 2012-2013 redistricting went down.
News is breaking today that Landen Gambill, a UNC sophomore involved in the outstanding complaint against the University, could potentially face expulsion by the UNC Honor Court because she has allegedly "intimidated" her rapist and "adversely" affected his life. This development has already attracted (more) bad national press coverage for UNC.
This headline comes on the heels of news from the Daily Tar Heel that UNC junior Stedman Gage was found dead late Friday night at his off-campus residence. The cause of death has not yet been released by police. Gage is the fourth UNC student to unexpectedly die this academic year.
Though different in nature, both of these issues negatively affect the image of UNC and, by extension, our town and community at large. Perhaps the issue of how the Honor Court conducts its affairs is an internal matter to students and University administrators -- but I'm not so sure. If the University community decides that a victim of sexual assault is not welcome -- and is, in fact, in violation of its community standard -- does that not also reflect that the Chapel Hill community at large is also unwelcoming and unconcerned with issues of this nature?
The Town of Carrboro Planning Board held a series of three Affordable
Housing Dialogues in October 2012 to educate and engage the public in
planning for affordable housing. A report of their findings
is now available. The chair of the Carrboro Planning Board will be
presenting on this report and the Carrboro Board of Alderfolks will be
discussing it at their meeting tonight (Tuesday, February 19th).
The
recommendations of the report are:
1. Make the
Affordable Housing Task Force a standing committee of the Board of
Aldermen, and expand it to include other public and private
stakeholders, such as advisory boards, affordable housing developers,
and advocates.
2. In that comprehensive policy, consider a
staggered approach to income targeting and goals, such that people along
the income continuum of very low (less than 50% of median income), to
low (50% - 80%) to moderate income (80% - 115%) can benefit in some way
from Carrboro’s policy efforts and investments.
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