Brookside/Parker redistricting Deferred

I haven’t had a chance to see the School Committee meeting from last Monday. My recorder failed, and I had to attend a meeting of the Salvation Army Radiothon committee as we prepare for that event on the 15th of December. It will replay on local access today and tomorrow.

What I have heard, and now read in the paper, is that the committee decided to put off any decision regarding redistricting of any students from one school to another to the end of the school year.

They say that they want to wait for a response from the state School Building Assistance (SBA) program about a new high school. From what I remember, this response is due before the end of December.. but maybe that changed.

Our town cannot find the land for a football field. The committee to look for land for a new high school seems to have gone on hiatus for quite a while… there just does’t seem to be any large parcels left in town that would be appropriate for such a large project.

Even a decision by the SBA to build a new school would not effect current school populations. It would take years to design and build a school… never mind sell a 40 to 60 million dollar project to the taxpayers when we can’t even figure out how to build a 10 million dollar Town Hall.

No.. the chat on the street seems to be that this move to defer this decision feels more like an attempt to take the issue of the table for the spring election to protect the incumbent.

The committee can say during the election that “no decision has been made,” but once the May election is over the committee will come right back to these options to move the students. No longer under pressure from an election, the parents’ input will be given less consideration.

At this point, the parents of the Brookside and Parker Schools seem to have made their point and stopped this effort. If the parents aren’t concerned about the class size, then that should take precedence over other considerations.. at least for now.

The town has had some movement in student population. There is currently a bubble at the high school that should ease up in a couple years. Growth in the town is minimal (I’m told only about 40-45 new housing units were added last year, and very few of them had children). Only one large development is in the plans, and even it seems to be stalled for the forseeable future.

In the long run, with no real affordable housing for young couples our town is actually seeing a long term leveling of student population.. or even a reduction.

The Superintendent is right in bringing up the issue of classroom sizes to the committee. It is their job to decide on the priority of this issue and set policy. The better move would probably be to look at redistricting the entire school district.

A “freshman academy” approach could relieve high school population problems, parents and administration from all the schools could be brought into the planning, a long term “master plan” could be developed and sold to the town leaders and to the taxpayers.

All ideas to contemplate… looks like we’ve got some issue to discuss in the spring election.