Letter to the Board

I sent the message below to each OCSB member this morning. I received responses from four members that varied from very supportive to downright frosty.


Dear [Board Member],

My name is Robert Scott and my son, Carter Scott, is a kindergartner at Hillsborough Elementary School.

It has just recently come to my attention that the Orange County School Board is considering merging Hillsborough Elementary School and Central Elementary School as a way to address CES’ current No Child Left Behind status.

While I can understand the desire to consider any option to improve the opportunities and performance of the CES children, I feel that merging the two schools is the worst possible scenario, and is destined to fail the children at both schools.

HES is a school of choice. However, it is a choice that is open to any parent in the district. Putting your children in HES involves a certain commitment of time, effort, and a sacrifice of convenience. Not every parent wants to make these commitments.

My son does not go to school with most of the children in our neighborhood; he is out of school when his friends are not around; he attends school when they are on vacation; I take time off work to help his class on field trips, attend assemblies and meet regularly with his teacher; my wife volunteers to help in the classroom; and we take him back and forth to school every day because there is no bus service to our neighborhood. We didn’t choose to make these sacrifices simply because we like the year-round schedule. We do it because of the unique learning environment and high expectations HES provides for our son.

However, if that environment and those expectations were to change in any way, we would cease to make those sacrifices. At the very least, we would move our son to our neighborhood school, New Hope Elementary while we explore other options that will continue the good work done by his teachers at HES.

I will be attending this evening’s Board meeting and I hope you will voice your support for the students at HES by voting against any further consideration of merging these two schools.