No, the job of this task force was to address two specific
questions:
A. Should the school district provide expanded transportation service to
neighborhood elementary schools to enable them to serve students who live outside
their immediate neighborhoods?
B. What can and should the district do to provide students and parents with
meaningful incentives to choose the school closest to home, regardless of whether it
is a neighborhood or a magnet school?
It's not that the questions you posed are not important, they just weren't
the focus of this task force. School choice is an absolutely huge issue, and one that
really needs to be studied in depth over the course of an entire year, not just four
meetings. I have a personal interest in school choice because both of my sons have an
almost hour long bus ride to a magnet school, because our neighborhood school simply
doesn't have the resources to offer the challenge and curriculum they need to succeed.
But on a larger scale, it's obvious to any of us with children or who work with
children that they all learn at different paces, have different strengths, interests
and gifts and that no one school will be the answer to every child in any given
neighborhood. I grew up in a small rural town where I went to school for 13 years
with probably 85% of the 210 kids I eventually graduated with oh those many years ago.
There was one k-3 elementary, one 4-6 elementary, one junior high and one senior
high. The only 'church' school was 10 miles north of town, unless you were a
trouble-maker; then you were shipped farther north. Choice consisted of whether you
ate hot lunch or brought your own. So when it came time for me to figure out where to
send my kids in such an incredibly complicated system (and I consider myself a quick
study), I turned to the opinions of those with the same values and expectations in
public education that I possess to help me decide. But I was lucky, in that I knew
what questions to ask. I think the current system is too cumbersome for some who
simply give up and take what they get, and it needs dramatic simplification. The
School Information Fair is a valuable tool, and I have volunteered in my school's
booth to toot their horn. But more needs to be done and I sincerely hope the School
Board will decide it is worth their time to roll up their sleeves and see how they can
fix this machine. I also agree the transportation budget is monstrous, and
strengthening the neighborhood schools to make them a more attractive option for
parents will alleviate a certain percentage of that burden, but not all. Ideas? I know
most of you probably attended the numerous school choice community meetings last year,
as did I, but newcomers to the question may have some valuable insights.
Lori Windels
West Side
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