Before Columbus Public Schools makes its preliminary list of schools to be closed a final list, it must hold public meetings to gain community feedback from what it calls “customers” and “stakeholders” (please… they’re called “students,” “parents” and “other community members”). After announcing the list of tentative closings on November 30, they said they’d hold public meetings in December before making their final decision in the same month.
Well, it’s December 6 now, and not only have the meetings not occurred, but they haven’t even been announced. No message in the papers. No notes sent home with kids. I called five numbers at Columbus Public Schools this morning to find that the community feedback meetings haven’t even been scheduled. Columbus Public Schools are letting kids out on vacation at noon on December 19. That makes for very little time left to schedule, announce, and publicize a public meeting for a city the size of Columbus. Surely they won’t schedule a meeting on or after December 19, since parents will be taking the kiddies over the river and through the woods to Grandmama’s house. Surely they wouldn’t ask for community feedback when so many “stakeholders” are elsewhere. Surely not!
I’m sure the Columbus Public Schools administration is full of awfully nice people. And yet, I just can’t shake the feeling that there really isn’t that much interest in real, honest public feedback on this issue.
Well, well, public meetings… I remember when there were supposed to be public meetings before the train station that served Chicago’s south side got torn down. It was a charming old train station, sort of deco 20′s style, absolutely huge as in cathedral huge, and probably impossible to heat, always a few homeless sleeping on the benches. A lot of neighborhood activists were following the debate, the public meeting was cancelled at the last minute, somehow it was rescheduled but the members of the public who wanted to attend and testify were somehow not notified of the new venue….the rather ugly stock exchange now stands on this space. Ah,..public meetings.
Let’s face it, the baby boom has been over for a while and there aren’t as many children as there used to be, also population shifts to the suburbs where people go when they want safe streets and good schools, .. it’s not just Columbus, it’s America.
For what it’s worth, here are a couple links, you might be able to find better ones. If they say the names of the schools are subject to change, that says to me they are just dying to be shown some political muscle and be given a good reason not to close some schools.
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/19_04/pare194.shtml
http://www.ncbg.org/schools/school_closings.htm
I remember from looking at NCLB issues that constantly changing schools does have quite an impact on children’s learning, and can actually set them back by grades. Also you might want to look at black/white educational issues. Having white students in a school in certain percentages improves black students’ performance, but what does having black students in schools do to white students’ performance? There is probably more recent research than the last time I looked at that issue, but if it’s your children, you want to look at the facts and not the hopes. I grew up in a new subdevelopment with great schools but no heart or soul, so good luck in finding a place with both.
Go kick some ass. Give them the Unity08 treatment. Sink your teeth in and be vocal. Are you talking to local papers too?
It strikes me that Jim can’t be just talking for himself, he has to have some other parents with him. Some of the other parents might also have some perpective and informed viewpoint that comes from living there for a while, where Jim is new to the neighborhood. The other parents might also be able to speak to some racial issues that Jim can’t. Jim mihgt have a unique perspective coming into the situation from outside and some optimism they need. Is someone having parent meetings? Wouldn’t it be better to meet first without the school officials and start counting your ducks? Where’s your state rep?
i’m curious what makes you think the meetings have to be held before the end of this year. did i miss some piece of evidence? it looks from my reading of your articles that this is an unfounded assumption on your part, but you could have jsut not reported that part, or even reported it and i missed it. but can i get a clarification of that?
Yep, it’s in there — end of first paragraph. The school board is making a decision before the end of this month (I found out since I wrote this that, more specifically, they’re making a decision by Dec. 19). So community input needs to happen before then if community input is to have a role in the decision.
oh, whoops. yep. read right over it twice, at least. ( :