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No school left behind

November 10th, 2007

I do not come to this rezoning discussion without bias… I have a dog in this fight, in fact I have three of them… three children ages 13, 11, and 8 and all are housebroken.

We are in the Gilchrist, Raa, Leon school zones and we will still be there after this rezoning. We chose our neighborhood based on ethnically diverse and excellently thriving schools. I don’t think that you should fix what isn’t broken. Those three schools are WORKING well.

A tipping point exists in schools. Schools close to that tipping point of 40% free and reduced lunch number (Raa is around 35%) start rapidly sliding toward less effective and more expensive education. Rezoning will make a BIG difference. Ten percent of the population of Raa will be gone when the rising 6th and 7th graders leave next year- even MORE the next year as the new school adds 8th grade.

I have a vested interest in Raa because my children are there and will continue to be educated there. I also have a vested interest in my community being strong and my city being healthy and successful.

A few years ago there was a plan to rezone Gilchrist and our neighborhood was being looked at to change to Ruediger Elementary. I was the parent waving the “Heck no, we won’t go” banner UNTIL another neighbor challenged me asking, “Have you visited Ruediger? I went and met some great teachers. I think it could be like Gilchrist if we all went there.”

I was stunned and silent (and that doesn’t happen often). I had not even thought beyond my own agenda for keeping things convenient and comfortable to what might be a bigger picture.

I know the goals I had for my life and for my family. I want to raise children who love God and love others. I want to leave this world a little better because I walked here for this short time.

Could those goals be accomplished at Gilchrist or Ruediger? Yes, they could.

Would it have been more convenient and comfortable at Gilchrist? Yes, it would.

However do we strive only for convenience and comfort in our lives? I hope I am striving for more than that.

I realized that comfort and convenience are not our family’s goals. Instead we strive for character, courage, compassion, and good citizenship. Great goals, however there is work and sacrifice involved.

The rezoning didn’t happen. In some ways, I was sorry. I would have liked to have seen what would have happened if we had been inconvenienced and challenged. Would we have left that school and our community a better place? I will never know.

We are increasingly becoming a society of convenience. Fast food, email, cell phones…and that spills into what we want in our schools. Demanding everything when and where we want it. I type this as I sip a Starbucks and check my cell phone for messages. I am just as guilty as the next gal. I throw stones from my own glass house.

There is a proverb that states “Every convenience brings its own inconveniences with it.” What is going to happen if we put convenience at the top of our rezoning goals list? In the end we will wind up more inconvenienced.

Currently the list of goals for the zoning committee is to try to…

Keep neighborhoods intact
Send students to the nearest school
Reduce overcrowding
Plan for future population growth
Strengthen feeder patterns
Build racial and economic diversity

So it seems the Raa rezoning (even though it doesn’t meet the criteria for the other 4 goals) is all about the convenience.

Rezoning the Killearn students that attend Raa will NOT reduce overcrowding as Raa is under-capacity. It will not plan for future population growth which includes substantial growth near the new middle school. More dangerously, I believe that it will NOT strength feeder patterns unless in the future students are rezoned out of other elementary and high schools to keep them all together, expanding this issue into other centrally located schools. Finally, this rezoning also does NOT build racial and economic diversity.

Convenience will lead to inconvenience as these schools “left behind” cost more tax dollars to continue to educate students. Magnet programs are wonderful, and wonderfully expensive. We will see in 5-10 years the results of what happens at this rezoning, for better or for worse in our community and our checkbooks.

Neighborhood schools are comfortable and convenient. Do we pay the price for that comfort and convenience now or in the future? There will be a price to pay someday…

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ironically, I stand at the corner of Tharpe and MLK Boulevard to pick up my daughter from Raa. I hope to see some of you there too.

- Lea Marshall

Entry Filed under: Economic segregation, Get Local: Tallahassee