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In preparation
for the election Nov. 6, several residents of the
Kingfield-East Harriet "open attendance" area volunteered to quiz school board candidates about their stands on what should be done about "open attendance" areas, where residents do not have guaranteed access to a community school. I want to note that these dispatches are from ordinary citizens, not reporters, and that we haven't devoted equal space to each candidate because some citizens ended up contacting candidates individually while others went to a candidate forum. This post is intended to share information, not endorse any candidate. If any candidate wishes to correct or supplement this information, please do so. Because this post is so long, it had to be divided
in two. Sorry if this is confusing.
Heather
Martens
Co-chair, Kingfield-East Harriet Joint Committee on Community Schools -- Background first: For the past two years, a group of parents from Open Area 38 (Kingfield-East Harriet) has been requesting that the district make the school-choice process more fair for kids in open areas, and eventually provide the kids in our area with a community school. One problem for open area kids was that they ended up receiving lower priority for admission to the surrounding community schools, after kids who lived in the designated community school attendance area. Another was that open-area kids took a greater risk placing a magnet program as a first choice, because they had no community school to fall back on. And finally, open-area kids ended up attending many different schools, diffusing the community. It is impossible for families in these areas to ensure that their child go to school with a particular playmate. At the parent group's suggestion, the district last year instituted a "three-choice guarantee" for entering Kindergarteners from open areas, meaning that the student would be guaranteed one of his or her top three choices, provided that only one of the choices was a magnet program. The three-choice guarantee is in effect again this year, but again only for entering Kindergarteners. Resident Jessica Toft contacted candidate Patrick Peterson by email about the issue, and here is his reply: Do you live in the Kingfield Neighborhood? That's one of the areas that are still open. In that case, I do think that we need a school in the 10th ward -- which means that given the density of the area we're going to need to think creatively. (I'll get to that in a bit). I do believe we need to stop riding the fence and become a community-school city. That means that we need to close the open areas, so that parents in these areas can send their kids to neighborhood schools. Although the "third choice" of which you speak is a good change, it is necessary for us to finish the job with respect to community schools. And it needs to be a high priority -- because all of our initiatives that will ensure that all kids (regardless of class) can learn and get a good education -- presupposes that we are a community-school district. In fact, virtually every policy either being proposed or coming out of the district is based on the assumption that we have community schools. So, if we want our policies to work, we need to *actually* be a community school district. (Back to the thinking creatively). One of the things that I propose we examine is a process where we work with the city council to give a tax incentive to businesses who are constructing new facilities to add more space than they need, and then lease that space back to us (the schools) at a discounted rate. We could put "mini-schools" (that people like better anyway), or house administrative offices there, freeing up space in schools. The reason this type of plan wasn't feasible in the past was because of the administrative offices needed to support schools wouldn't have been cost effective (imagine the cost of a school office repeated over and over for each school). But today, if we use technology to our advantage (something the district needs to do badly -- we're stuck in 1995 and can't afford it) we can streamline the administrative part of the schools so that one office could administer to many different mini-schools. Businesses would benefit because of increased customers, and the fact that they would be getting rent and tax incentives that they otherwise wouldn't. Parents would be closer to their teachers (something they almost universally wish were available), and kids would be able to learn in better environments. If you have any other questions, or just want to chat, give me a call at 204.3016 or send me back an e-mail! All my best Patrick |
