SUPPORT LIBERTY'S LAW!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Redistricting options draw ire of parents.

By Rachel Kellogg
Neighbor Newspapers


Fulton County School System operational planning director Yngrid Huff was met with cheers and applause last week when she told a room full of parents that the redistricting map they were seeing would not be the final version.

At the third and final redistricting meeting for the new high school at Bethany Bend, which opens fall of 2012, Huff said the school board is still attempting to get feedback for the final version of the map.

Though she said she realized many parents were unhappy with the map, she stressed the importance of gaining well-rounded perspectives.

“It is equally important to hear what you do like,” she said.

But several community members and parents say they are having a hard time finding anything to like about the map, which would send the northeastern section of Roswell High School’s zone, including the Edenwilde Subdivision, to Milton High School and the northern half of Milton High’s zone to the new school.

“I’m seeing communities torn apart. I don’t think anyone is happy [with the map],” said Mike Nyden, head of The Roswell Organizing Committee. But Nyden said simply tweaking the map is not a viable option. He said the problem lies within the school system’s redistricting process.

“The process is broken, and it needs to be fixed,” he said.

Nyden said the location of the new school was poorly chosen, considering that most of the overcrowding issues are with Roswell High.

“What you have is a new high school where the kids aren’t,” he said.

In a letter sent to several elected officials and news organizations, parents Kimberly McCool and Melissa Thomas-Dubois outlined their concerns about the map, first noting that many children will be sent to schools which are not the closet to them.

“The current Plan C moves many students farther away from their home high school, not only causing chaos and inconvenience, but as gas prices approach $5 a gallon, significant transportation costs for the [board of education],” the letter said.

Though all changes will take effect in August of next year, the recommended redistricting map will be presented to the school board in May and will be voted on in June.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen Roswell! They are not listening or agreeing to your concerns either. Just think if Roswell and Milton seriously united on issues like this?

power in numbers. Power in votes. No splost money, they are not agreeing with our concerns for our communities. Bottom line, we know what's best for our kids and communities, not them.

Anonymous said...

You guys should change your red shirts for brown shirts... it would be more appropriate.

Anonymous said...

WHAT AN UNFAIR TITLE. Not everyone in Milton is unhappy with the proposed redistricting lines!

Our schools are crowded--some students need to move to a new school to alleviate overcrowding--and it might be YOUR KIDS!

If not and your kids are staying at the same school--you don't get to pick and chose who is staying there too. You Milton folks wanted the school to be less crowded--remember? Well it's going to be!!

The school buildings your children attend might not be next to each other. Your children might have to travel a couple of extra miles to get to school. They might even have to drive in a different direction! And they might have to make some NEW friends!

You know, THEY can handle it--especially if parents set a good example for them!

Hurry up Fulton County with the final map so parents can drum up positive energy and do something more constructive with their time and we can see a positive title for these news articles.

Anonymous said...

It's about TRAFFIC PATTERNS and PROXIMITY which are not being used as the criteria for our city. They could split Milton students between both schools instead of moving mostly Miltons student population out of MHS and still relieve overcrowding of Roswell and Alpharetta. Isn't the problem really that? MHS is not overpopulated with the Milton student population, too many kids from our city, so why did we have to have the new school right here right now? This school was needed closer Roswell and Alpharetta, not out in the boonies. This is the largest move because milton was not the best location, just the cheapest
land. Is that the criteria when choosing land? They never seem to stick to their criteria, just say they do, then do the opposite of what makes sense.

Pretty bad when the BOE has no credibility or trust from the population who elected them and supports financially their very function.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I've got some news for ya: they OVERpaid for that land and the undeveloped land on Freemanville. They bailed out some well known developers.

Anonymous said...

Vote for Milton County!!

Anonymous said...

Don't think that's the answer. Same folks will be running Milton County.

Anonymous said...

"Power in numbers"...."Power in votes"...."They are not agreeing with our concerns..."...."we know what's best for our community"....you do...how's that?

I hope that the people who want to vote our public officials out of office are the same people who run for public office next time. I mean you do know what's best for our community....right? Well then put your knowledge in good use and run for public office and let's see what happens. I doubt you'll accept the challenge.....but you should think about.

I compare this to a situation that happened 25-26 years ago in East Cobb. Walton HS was built in, or around 1976, in a neighborhood surrounding, kind of like Milton is situated. Well Walton was becoming overcrowded after 6-7 years so Cobb County said we are going to build a new HS on Shallowford Road (Lassiter)to ease potential overcrowding. So what do think the people that were going to be redistricted out of Walton HS did? They raised a little hell beause they had to go to Lassiter and they wanted to go the "name brand" school.

So how many of you think Lassiter compares to Walton on an overall basis? Do you think Walton is that much better then Lassiter? In my opinion Lassiter became a "name brand" school...Walton and Lassiter are almost identical in stature. It's the same situation here. You can't go wrong with Walton or Lassiter....and you can't go wrong with Milton HS or the new HS. People need to chill out and accept whatever happens.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the last comment.

Closer to home, average SAT scores at both Roswell HS and Alpharetta HS are higher than those at Milton HS.

Anonymous said...

What does that have to do with the price of eggs in China?