The Boundary War

So the past 6 weeks, we have been consumed by a school boundary war.  It has been an eye-opening experience to say the least. 

We have attended four separate District and Board of Education meetings.  Wrote letters to district committees, letters to Board members, letters to the editor, etc.  We've attended neighborhood and parent meetings.  By the end, our school even made the Chicago news on multiple stations.

I had never been to a school board meeting before and all I can say is, "shocking!"  Seriously, I solemnly swear to pay attention to school board elections from now on.  It was sad to see the ineptitude of some board members and so frustrating to know that they are making decisions about your kids when they are obviously incompetent or even worse playing politics.  Hundreds of parents came to the meetings, along with a very visible police presence.  Dave and I left one board meeting at 12:15 am, it just kept going on and on.  On the night of the final vote we didn't leave until 11:30.  I literally felt my mind boggling watching these meetings unfold.  At one mind numbing meeting some friends and I entertained ourselves, reading and posting on the live blog of the meeting.  We weren't the only frustrated parents, some of my favorite comments were:

"I'm afraid the patient is going to die on the table here."

"Oh so now they are voting on modifying, the modified, motion, to modify the motion. Ridiculous"

"Can you imagine a full year of this?  Wait it feels like it has been a year."




Some surreptitously taken pictures



There were a lot of issues but basically, the district needs to redo boundaries because the schools on the northern side of the district are overcrowded.  There is plenty of capacity on the southern side of the district but no kids down there.  So that means some kids have to be bussed from one side of the district to the other to balance enrollment.  And of course, no one wants their kid on a bus for 25+ minutes each way, especially when they are bussed pass the junior high you can see from your backyard.

At our particular overcrowded junior high school there are three elementaries that feed into it and one of those elementaries was going to have to move.  It basically became an all out neighborhood war as each elementary tried to convince the district and board not to move them.  It became a matter of throwing other neighborhoods under the bus or more literally "on the bus."  It was painful because all these elementaries are within a 2 mile radius of each other and basically all had the same argument---it's too far.

In the end, another elementary was chosen, so Ashley will not have to change schools next year.  I'm happy for her, but it's hard to be happy when you know someone else's kid is going to have to do what you didn't want for yours. 

For us, the main battle is over, but there are still other issues to be decided and the controversy will continue.  Oh, and did I mention that all three members of the Superintendency have resigned due to differences with the board?  Oh, and did I mention that this boundary plan is only designed to be good for three years?  Yep, three years from now we will have to go through another round of boundary wars. 

I feel like the education my children are getting is good but hope it lasts with this school board in charge.