Well, I was reminded off-list that Lapham is K-2, and those kids cross the Avenue starting in grade 3. But the converse, that south-of-the-border K-2 kids come _to_ Lapham is news to me.
'Course, the elephant in the room this ignores is that one of the options on the table was to run both schools K-5 with fewer sections. At the risk of sounding like Abe Simpson, "when I was a kid", our elementary school had just one section per grade (K-6). (No, it wasn't five miles in the snow, uphill both ways...) In a district with a constantly _dropping_ student population, aging tax base, millage elections left and right, etc. Certainly no better than MMSD's current situation. Closing Marquette, according to the WSJ article will save "us" $522,000, about five bucks from each household in the city. The message I take from that is that, to the School Board, "Safe Routes to School" is a great idea, as long as it doesn't "cost" anything. (I'll leave discussion of the true "cost" of this decision to our health, quality of life, etc., to those who know that stuff better than me.) Hmm, maybe they could equip the little "walking bus" cart with a plow in the front for the wintertime.... --------------- Paul T. O'Leary Desktop Insurgent Madison, WI USA ---- Mitchell Nussbaum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Lapham School and Marquette School are paired right now. Kids on the > north and south sides of the Isthmus attend Lapham from Kindergarten to > second grade, Marquette from third to fifth grade, and then O'Keeffe from > sixth to eighth grade. > > There may be other reasons to oppose consolidating Lapham and Marquette, > but from the standpoint of walking to school, the change is basically a > wash; while a kid who lives on Jenifer Street will have to cross E. > Washington Avenue for all six years of grade school (not just for K-2), a > kid on E. Dayton Street will stay in his/her neighborhood until middle > school. _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
