I slept on this so that I could remove some of the emotion from the past week but after hearing from some of you, I felt the need to post this.
I want to say that I am sorry that I wasn't able to get the result that would be best for the school district and Line Creek. Through the process and in hindsight, there were some tactical things that could have been done that would have put us in a better situation. I didn't build any goodwill with some folks in the district because I think the intent of the committee was to rubber stamp a plan and move on. I don't think they anticipated someone who would work up some options with a goal of trying to balance enrollment, s/e, and keep neighborhoods intact.
It's difficult to compress with reason a point in 5 minutes but there is a reason why the Board only allows that amount of time. I attempted to frame our concerns and put the board in our shoes. I attempted to explain how I have high expecations and that I don't except comparing us to peer schools to set our norm. I fumbled a couple of transitions as I was running out of time and I am sorry that I didn't provide a better argument.
The boundaries could have been tweaked within the final map that would have balanced all the schools but Southeast which would allowed the district to continue to focus on handling the opportunities there. This was a once in a decade chance to make the district a better one and the Board and staff punted.
The process started with a flawed map that split the Coves and Wildwood. Comment number 78 was crude and to the point and was like this: "Do you realize you will get hell for splitting the Coves? Are you that f%%%ing stupid? Why was a map presented that got a bunch of people unncessarily riled up which skewed the feedback? Why did the 134 people that felt the need to comment on s/e balance get disregarded? Why are there staff members who put their name to the comments that were concerned about that balance? Those staff members should be commended for standing up and voicing their concerns for their schools and student. Why does the final map have 2 schools in the 300's for enrollment and 2 schools in the 500's?
I don't understand how much emoting and inconsistency caused the goal posts to move around in the last 6 weeks.
Those of us at Line Creek and Southeast see the urgency of the issue since we live it. The other 8 schools don't but they will some day.
What do we do now? I guess we put our head in the sand like everyone else and do what staff and the Board expect us to do: be mad for a couple of weeks and then get over it.
What I won't be able to get over is the fact that this was a great opportunity to position the district for the 10 years and we lacked the vision to use it.
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