I think some people who live in the neighborhoods the FCBOE is going after with that scalpel are afraid of Flat Rock and Sandy Creek. I believe there minefields for kids at any middle and high school, but the ones we've been reading about in the newspaper about Flat Rock don't give me warm and fuzzy feelings. This newspaper makes it sound like that school is on the verge of race riots. As a parent of a child at Flat Rock, you probably know better, but you must have noticed the press the school has been getting lately.

Regardless, the dynamic that is interesting to me is that suddenly everyone's an expert! You're wanting to send Crabapple Woods and Ardenlee to Flat Rock and Sandy Creek, presumably without any knowledge about the size of the neighborhoods or the number of kids involved. (Booth is closer, by the way, they aren't equidistant.) People are complaining about Highgrove and Whitewater Creek (I know they aren't in PTC) staying in their existing boundaries rather than going to BMMS, again, probably without any knowledge about the size of the neighborhoods or the number of kids involved. This is an emotional issue for many people, myself included, but this sort of stuff doesn't help anyone. This "leave my neighborhood alone, move those kids instead" attitude isn't really what we've become, is it?

First of all, Flat Rock is not on the verge of race riots. Yeah, that recent incident shouldn't have happened, but it has long been over. I didn't say I wanted Crabapple/Ardenlee kids to be sent to Flat Rock/S. Creek. I was questioning why neighborhoods that are closer to Booth got removed from that district when farther neighborhoods (Cr/Ar) that are just as close to another school stayed. There are other neighborhoods to which this applies, too. I don't know what odometer you use, but if you plug in the addresses of St. Paul's (at the entrance to Ardenlee), Booth, and Flat Rock, mapsyahoo.com will tell you Flat Rock is 4.8 miles from St. Paul's and Booth is 4.9 miles. That's pretty close to equidistant, if you ask me. I understand that PTC folks want their kids in PTC schools, but Booth is not going to be able to handle all of the present and future development in PTC, and like one speaker said on Monday night, there is never just one solution. Yes, this whole ordeal been an emotional issue, exacerbated by the BOE's failure to provide data and answer questions. People asked for answers to legitimate questions, but even at Monday night's meeting, their silence was deafening. It's not a matter of "move those kids instead." It's a matter of having stated criteria for boundaries and then following those criteria. If the BOE would give us the numbers that were used, it would go a long way toward dispelling suspicions about certain schools or neighborhoods being protected. The problem is, they know those numbers would not support what they did. In any case, the BOE knows the dust from all this will settle and most of the people that have recently packed their meeting room will go back to their regularly scheduled Monday night activities. But as several others have already noted, the time to get involved in the next round is EARLY in the process. I think we've all learned a lot from this go-round.

Good Blog - The only thing I disagree with is your last few sentences. We are not going away - we have had our wake up call - this process will be changed in a positive way. They messed with the wrong people this time - people who are concerned not for just their children but for all the children in the community.

I agree. I'm not going away either, and I hope others stay just as involved. There are so many capable people in our community who could contribute much to the process so that we get it right next time. It's just that so often once it's all over, it's easy to get complacent again.

Of course there are no PTC schools. No one objecting to the proposed redistricting thinks that, and no one thinks they're better than any one else either. Your anti-PTC bias is showing. What these PTC residents are objecting to is being bused out of their own city across the county to Fayetteville to go to Bennett's Mill, more than twice the distance they are from Booth. Booth is not exactly Disneyland, okay? It just happens to be in PTC, and these parents and kids happen to live in PTC. What is so hard to understand about wanting to go to school in the city of 30,000 where you live, shop, play rec league sports, and go to church, instead of somewhere where your kids will know no one and, apparently, be going to school with a lot of kids who will carry on their parents' anti-PTC bias? Not to mention splitting their elementary school three ways and then the middle school four ways (if/when the new high school is built). And what's most disturbing is the obvious and continual lies about "overcrowding" being told to justify this absurd move. The real reasons are (1) they want "rich" white kids with good test scores; and (2) protection of Whitewater and Highgrove neighborhoods, which are much closer to Bennett's Mill, an easier and safer drive, and in the same natural area as Bennett's Mill instead of a separate city/community. Ask yourself which redistricting committee chairperson is the former principal of the Starr's Mill system, where WW and Highgrove presently go, and ask where that chairperson's own children go to school, although they don't live in that district.

You, my blonde bombshell, are trying to interject common sense in to this whole re-districting fiasco .... what in the world are you thinking!?

Nice hair-
MainFrame

How come the FCBOE is rushing a vote on the redistricting lines? How come kids that go to school in elementary schools that sit adjacent to a middle school are not required to feed only into that middle school? Look at Spring Hill and Fayette Middle schools. Explain how they figure out bus routes in this county. I think that this county's citizens need to wake and take a look at how things really do run in the supposed #1 schools in the state county. I am amazed and I think that most of this county would be as shocked as I am.