• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

10-23-19;12:57PM; # 11 3 ^> n ^-' < (/ 7^^ e'c( '''T'nis3 _i_ t>v^ iA/e. '>'i;</i D R.^A^A. T. - /^. A. ^4, /? .^rafiS^tesiiuijte'this letter in support of^BF boundary review plan for the students in Howard County. I havebeen a resident ofHoward Countyfor almost SOyears andhave seen the county growtremendously. I have also seei^in my 102years on this Earth, that change is hard. I knowyou can only imagine all the change I have seen over my years, but trust me, it isn't easyfor the change agent either. Think about Brown vs The Board of Education, think about "TheLittle RockNine", think aboutall the tough decisions thatwere made in order for all those little boys and girls to enter a desegregated school for the first time. Now ofcourse we are 50 years from those times^so I thought, I saythat flippandy, but sayit I must As I followalong with the Howard County news and whatsgm^ofthe Howard County residents are saying, it reminds me of a i^Vs^Sv time. It reminds me of comments madewhen people were scared ofchange. It reminds me ofa time whenfear controlled the minds ofpeople andthey felt that they could belittle an entire race. Unfortunately it reminds me ofa time when equity in schools wasnot a priority. Now believe me, I haven't been a supporter ofall the changes In our county, but this is one I <Ri fully support. How could someone not want what's best for children, ALLchildren. How could one saywith a clear conscience that they do not believe in equity for children. lam in ftilljiipport becauseI knowthat ALL children canand will benefit from^&^bS^Sy "ff'} reviewplan. When I see signs andposters and even t-shirts that say, "Don't move, improve", I can't help but think about a quote by Thurgood Marshall, What is the quality ofyour intent? Certain people have a way of saying things that shake us at the core. Even when the words do not seem harsh or offensive, the impact is shattering. Whatwe could be experiendng is the intent behind the words. When we intend to do good, we do.When we intend to do harm, it happens. What each of us must come to realize is that our intent always comes through." RECEIVED OCT 2 8 ?"19' 10-23-19;12:57PM; # 3/ 3 AsrlT:lu5&+waRted~to lot you luiinvtifai^cause of my work with Howard County schools and myefforts to help closethe equitygap, I hadthe opportunity to meet PresidentObama. He said, "Because of the Civil Rights movement, new doors ofopportunity and education swung open for everybody... Notjust for blacks and whites, but also women and Latinos; and Asiansand Native Americans; andgay Americans andAmericans with a disability.They swung open for you, and they swung open for me. And that's whyI'm standing here toda^b^cau^e of those efforts, becauseofdiat legacy." ^f- ou-%^%^TO. /I^^&^SSAand P^ythat^^^^^. J.^. %3 rail oftiiesfiaaentS m theHoward County Public School System. fc, Uj-^OS<&^- /s Sincerely, Mrs. Vivian Bailey Lori Proietti Polygon 1186 October 28, 2019 Board of Education Howard County Public School System 10910 Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 Dear Board of Education Members, I graduated from Hammond High School and returned to Columbia to raise my children, all three of which are in the Howard County Public Schools. As a Howard County resident, I am deeply disturbed by the lack of transparency and lack of inclusiveness leading up to the release of the Superintendent's proposed Attendance Area Adjustment Plan. Additionally, I strongly oppose the Plan itself for the following reasons: Financial, Safety, and Environmental Concerns: Fiscal Responsibility: The plan to swap students from their local neighborhood schools and insert them into distant schools will be extremely expensive. With finite school funding, programs and/or teachers will have to be cut to pay for all the unnecessary gas, buses, and bus drivers this Plan requires. Student Safety on Hieh Traffic 2_High ^Eeed Roads: The Plan increases bus services and unnecessarily puts students in danger on major transportation arteries. o In the case of the proposed school change impacting my community [the swapping of students between Clarksville Middle and Harper's Choice Middle] children that now travel a short distance on low speed local roads will now have to travel on Maryland Route 108, where they are subjected to oncoming traffic moving at least 45 miles an hour. While our segment of CIarksville and Harper's Choice appear contiguous on a map, they are not contiguous from a transportation perspective; they are on complete opposite sides of the 1, 021 acre Middle Patuxent Environmental Area, so those forced to commute back-and-forth will have to drive around the Environmental Area. This commute will require students to spend a significant amount of time on an overcrowded stretch ofMD-Route 108, which has one lane in either direction and which MDOT shows had 20, 771 Annual Average Weekday Travel in 2018. This number will greatly increase with the addition of 1, 440 residential units at Limestone Valley and the new River Hill Square shopping center (both of which are along 108 near the intersection ofSheppard Lane], making travelling between these two already distant neighborhoods even more burdensome and dangerous. Keeping school buses and children off this major transportation artery and on local roads to their local middle school makes practical sense. o Each year, about 17, 000 children are treated in hospital emergency rooms for injuries associated with school buses. While this is a small percentage relative to the total number of students transported, one unnecessary injury or death is one too many and unnecessarily prolonging students' time In buses as well as unnecessarily routing school buses on major transportation arteries increases this risk. Environmental Impact: School buses omit toxic fumes and this Plan increases the County's carbon footprint in perpetuity. The Plan blatantly ienores citizen input: . The Superintendent's Plan states that the three main concerns of County residents as reported in the Attendance Area Boundary Review Survey were: (1) transportation considerations [42. 64% of respondents); (2) keeping feeds of students together from one school to the next [65. 95% of respondents); and (3) maintaining contiguous communities or neighborhoods (59. 59% of respondents) The Plan blatantly ignores the three top concerns prioritized by the majority of respondents in favor of a subset of demographic considerations (demographic considerations as a whole were a priority for only 19. 12% of respondents) The Plan is inconsistent with PoljcvAOl^): The Board of Education is able to consider school attendance area adjustments whenever one or more of the conditions set forth in Section IV(A) of Policy 6010 exists. In the case of the redistricting between Clarksville Middle School and Harper's Choice Middle school none of the conditions that allow for attendance area adjustments exist. Even if such an attendance area adjustment were warranted under Section IV(A), the majority of the factors the Board is to consider under Section IV[BJ, do not support an attendance area adjustment from Clarksville Middle to Harper's Choice Middle. o Facility Utilization: * In terms of use of space, both Clarksville Middle School and Harper's Choice Middle School are currently within the building's program capacity target utilization * The Plan is fiscally irresponsible by increasing capital and operating costs on transportation . The Plan increases students' total distance and travel time to school and reduces the number of students that can walk to school by hundreds county-wide o Community Stability: . The Plan does not promote a sense of community in that is swaps children out of their neighborhood. Feeds do not keep students together from one school to the next. Areas are not made up of contiguous communities. As previously mentioned, while our segment of Clarksville and Harper's Choice appear contiguous on a map, they are not contiguous from a transportation perspective, so those forced to commute back-and-forth will have to drive around the 1, 021 acre Environmental Area via an overcrowded stretch ofMD-Route 108, as opposed to driving a short distance on local roads to get to their local middle school. o Demographic Considerations of Student Population: . Clarksvilie Middle and Harper's Choice Middle are both diverse and are currently less than 50% white. While the redistricting will redistribute FARMS students and test scores, it has no impact on ESOL programs and disrupts hundreds of children between Clarksvflle Middle and Harper's Choice Middle in addition to disrupting almost 7, 400 children County-wide. Breakine Apan Communities and Impact on Children and Families: . Breaking Apart Communities: The Plan segments portions of neighborhoods and essentially swaps them with subsections of distant neighborhoods. In the case of our neighborhood, the Pheasant's Ridge section of River Hill, students currently attend Clarksville Elementary, Clarksville Middle, and River Hill High, but the Plan sends half of the community to Harper's Choice Middle, as opposed to Clarksville Middle, which is just one mile from some of the homes being redistricted and feeds primarily into the high school they will attend. Removing children from their neighborhood, friends, and schools that are often only a mile away is simply a horrible thing to do to children, especially during the formative and often awkward middle school years. * Impact on Children and Families: Even those children whose commute time is only increased by 10 minutes each way (many will be increased far more] will lose approximately 20 additional minutes a day, 100 additional minutes a week, and 4, 000 additional minutes (or 67 additional hours] a year (assuming 40 weeks of school) sitting on a bus.

Load more

  72

Copy Link