School election showdown over year-round schools

Jennie I think you'll truly find that most everyone out here is willing to compromise... we all want what is best not only for our own children, but all of the children that are supposed to be experiencing an enriching, challenging, supportive and inspiring academic life in WCPSS.  At the very core of almost every issue is the BOE's refusal to assess how their policies are actually working.  What is clicking along very well - and what needs improvment.   Economic Diversity IS important.  But - SO IS EDUCATION.  The two things are BOTH important - and in some cases across this great county - both are being acheived.  In MANY cases - economic diversity trumps everything.

We want a new approach.  We don't want something that has been tried (translate CMS...) and we don't want to dismantle everything that WCPSS stands for.  We simply want to improve the things that NEED IMPROVING.

Our kids - ALL of them - are counting on us.  They cannot do it alone. 

Seriously, user12345, next time there are reassignment hearings, you really need to attend one or two sessions.

You've been presented with some of these stories, and your response is to say "Oh, of course.  There's a simple solution here; the answer is clear."  Go to some of these reassignment hearings, and you'll hear a number of these, and so many of these parents are giving calm, rational, clear explanations of a problem followed by a reasonable request.  Their suggestions may seem like absolute no-brainers, yet they just get ignored.

Frankly, attending some of these meetings is what drove me to activism in the first place.  The initial instigation, of course, was when the school system reassigned my kids to the 17th closest elementary school to my home.  But as this drove me to study the situation and learn what was really driving the reassignment woes, I found much quite a bit that shocked me.  I saw callous and rude behaviour from a number of Board members, changing of rules mid-stream (initially promising us one thing, and then changing that entirely), and learning that while I thought kids in our area were getting a raw deal, others in other areas had it even worse.  (In my first rounds of the reassignment meetings, I learned a lot from the Garner families.  They were essentially locked into their home schools --- taunted with magnet and year round options being touted as "options" for all children, but being forced to stay in their home assignment because their "type" was needed there.

I think you like to attribute unhappiness with the current situation as greed or classism on those who live in other areas of the county as your own.   More often, though, I see it as people who have taken the time to truly educate themselves about how the system works, and are trying to make it better.

Seriously, make the time to attend one of the public hearings at the next reassignment.  Better yet, attend multiple meetings, with at least one in an area outside your own area of the county.  Yeah, you will probably hear a couple of people who seem to be "me, me, it's all about me."  But I guarantee you that you will hear a number of stories that will pique your empathy, and perhaps anger you at the injustice of a system that concentrates on the concept of the "health" of an inanimate object while it ignores real pain in the lives of individuals.