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A rethink as we rezone

November 8th, 2007

The course of democracy seldom runs smoothly. Any veteran of middle school history class knows that, as does anyone who has ever attended a school-rezoning meeting.

If you were snoozing during 7th grade and need a refresher, you might want to join Leon County Schools at the rezoning meeting for the new middle school tonight at 6PM at Roberts Elementary. At stake? Where my child will attend middle school, along with many of yours. I won’t be there, though, as The Village Square will be discussing our first Local Roundtable topic, economic segregation.

The Village Square came from the sense that politics, while it won’t ever be “beanbag”, has taken a notable turn southward of late. Missing? We think it’s the local conversation between people who share little league teams and drive carpools together, but don’t agree with each other politically. Instead, well-paid partisan talking heads turn our neighbors into an evil “they” who have “special” interests, and probably hate America too.

The Village Square thinks we can defy that trend right here in Tallahassee, by – go figure – talking with each other instead of about each other. From those conversations come common sense and a measure of common purpose.

Of course, few things will test this civility concept quite like rezoning.

My very own civility may be at risk, as my child is involved. We live in a pocket of Killearn currently zoned for Raa Middle School that may be rezoned to the new school. While for me the commute is only marginally shorter, rezoning would correct a poor feeder pattern that requires our kids to leave most of their elementary school friends to join a middle school full of strangers (middle schools are scary enough without strangers), only to return in high school to their former grade school peer group, which – uh - no longer includes them. In other words, they’ve been living in the plot of a high school cheerleader movie.

Left with the short straw of the rezoning is Raa Middle School, which will lose a substantial number of its gifted and higher socioeconomic students. From what The Village Square has learned so far in our conversation about economic segregation, that matters.

Critically important to this conversation is the concept of a tipping point, which seems to exist both in school systems and in neighborhoods. Apparently schools absorb a certain amount of economic diversity successfully, maintaining a high quality of education for all students while providing additional benefits that seem to help students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds achieve their potential. The many parents whose children have thrived in diverse schools like Raa Middle School and Leon High School know this first hand.

But when the percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch exceeds somewhere between 30 and 40%, the school risks tipping. Those families who have the resources to move to a new school zone, attend private school or provide transportation for a child with a tuition voucher, may leave the school. What’s left behind is a more challenged school that has tipped, in it the students who don’t have options.

Also left behind is a higher education bill for the taxpayer. We pay over $9,000 annually to support a student in the recently tipped and under-enrolled Nims Middle School, compared to about $5,400 per student at Swift Creek Middle School.

Whatever the decision, it won’t make everyone happy. Nevertheless, it’s worth aspiring to have an informed conversation that remembers, as neighbors, we are all partners in the ultimate long-term outcome.

We’ll do world peace next week.

- Liz Joyner

Entry Filed under: Economic segregation, Get Local: Tallahassee