Much of the discussion of dismantling HES has revolved around the lack of "diversity" created by its status as a school of choice.
Does anyone else see the irony of this discussion followed shortly by this news?
The African-American, female Superintendent of Orange County Schools, Shirley Carraway has announced her retirement effective October 1.
The African-American, female Principal of Hillsborough Elementary School, Mamie Jay has requested to take an immediate "leave of absence."
With the need to immediately start the search for a new superintendent, who may have different ideas about how best to address the problems facing all of the district's schools, this may not be the best time to make potentially irreversable decisions about the future of two elementary schools and alienate a sizeable number of the district's families.
Situations change and the Orange County School Board needs to change its priorities.
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9 comments:
Could you please tell me what exactly you are trying to save HES from?
"[The] Orange County School Board needs to change its priorities."
Change its priorities . . . to what? Maintaining the current status at HES? Wake up Mr. Scott -- the coffee's perking. Even the Orange County School Board can smell it.
To 4/14 12:38 anonymous: Interesting that Mr. Scott approved your question for posting, but decided not to answer it. So, assuming my comment makes it past the moderator, I'll provide an answer: Mr. Soctt is trying to save HES from the "under-served" (i.e., African-American) students at Central and Efland Cheeks elementary schools, which are currently supplying about 55% of students at HES, almost all of them white.
I will make an exception here to what has been my practice since starting this blog - not replying to anonymous comments (even though I have never failed to publish one). But I am only doing this because I cannot let your accusations of racism go unanswered.
Had you bothered to read the posting within its context, (or just the paragraph that lead into the sentence you quoted) you would understand that by saying that "Situations change and the Orange County School Board needs to change its priorities" I was saying that they need to hold off on any movement toward merger and focus on finding a replacement for Dr. Carraway.
Unfortunately, you cannot see past your "outrage" at the current situation to understand that there are bigger issues to address.
Has anyone bothered to ask, "How did we get into this situation?"
How did Central Elementary (CES) get so many "under-served"? If one were to do a little recollection, then one would learn that all the charges and innuendo of racism do not hold water.
The previous School Board (with at least two African American members) approved the current Elementary School district maps last year. As a matter of fact, the point was raised at the time about what the redistricting would do to CES and it's "under-served". That concern was ignored and the following School Board members voted in favor of the current districts: Libbie Hough, Dennis Whitling, Brenda Stevens, Randy Copeland, Liz Brown, and Delores Simpson.
Their vote to approve the new districting maps was a vote against CES and its children. They chose to do nothing, then they chose an inferior districting plan that exacerbated the problem, and now they are (once again) attempting to repeat their initial mistake.
Why shouldn't Mr. Allan Scott (or any other HES parent) have concerns? We are dealing with a school board that believes doing the same thing over and over again will somehow generate different results.
Anyone who attempts to make this issue about race or privilege probably has an ulterior motive ... the least of which has anything to do with what is best for the kids.
Mr. Scott:
Thanks for your response and the courage to post my comment.
I definitely understand that there are bigger issues here to address than merger. In my mind, the biggest one is: how can a school system allow such a high concentration of high-performing Caucasian children in one school, effectively gutting two other schools in the district (Central and Efland-Cheeks) of their best-scoring students, and pushing Central, at least, into Title 1?
I agree with 3:55 anonymous that HES parents should be concerned. Redistricting was a failure, but in my opinion the primary reason it was a failure is that the impact of HES students from the Central district was not taken into account when making district plans.
I don't mean to blame HES parents for the current situation. I agree that blame should fall primarily on the School Board. However, irrespective of who is to blame, the notion that HES can continue to function without some kind of change to the student population is not realistic, in my opinion, which I think is a pretty informed one.
I think HES parents should realize that if they want to maintain some measure of control over their school, they have to deal with the inequitable concentration of privileged students there, and either find a way to really open the school to minority children, merge with Central, or realize that if the Board doesn't act soon to address the problem, state and/or county courts will handle the situation directly.
Does any one have the original numbers of students who qualify for FRL at CES and Efland before children were allowed to transfer to HES? Chances are, the schools were technically more balanced from the past redistricting but because of the transfers, they became VERY unbalanced.
Teachermom:
Statistics on students attending HES from the CES district were presented at a School Board mini work session in late February. I don't have the percentage breakouts, but of the 96 students attending HES who are districted for Central, almost none of them are FRL.
So yes, had those kids (and the additional 40+ kids who were allowed to transfer from Central to OTHER elementary schools) attended CES, the socio-economics and performance measures would have been much closer to district norms.
I can't figure out what you two are advocating. Do you want to fix the problem of too many FRL at CES or are you simply more interested in covering it up?
Perhaps a new Superintendent is really what is needed. Perhaps Dr. Shirley Carraway knows it, too. The Orange County School Board is essentially made up of parent volunteers with no background in education or education bureaucracy. The School Board members were all advocates from their respective areas of the county but were soon thrust into a situation that was way over their heads – redistricting. When the old School Board considered the redistricting maps last year, most of them relied heavily on input from Dr. Carraway. A couple of School Board members even blindly followed Dr. Carraway’s suggestions ad-nausea. Thus the new maps were voted in.
Fast forward a year and now look at the mess we are in. While most of the Orange County School Board is new, things really aren’t that different. They find themselves in a situation where they are in over their heads. The two remaining old board members who voted for the current district maps (Dennis Whitling and Liz Brown) are still blindly following Dr. Carraway’s suggestions. Remember that merging HES and CES was Dr. Carraway’s latest suggestion.
Now it would seem Dr. Carraway has come to the conclusion that it is time to jump ship. Coincidence? Or is she leaving before a bad situation turns worse? Perhaps some of our School Board members need to wake-up and realize that serving on the School Board isn’t always “about the children”. Isn’t that a shame? It certainly is reality if nothing else.
The School Board needs to focus on hiring a new Superintendent that can clean up Carraway’s mess.
I completely agree with the 8:16 post. Nobody seems to know what the merger is all about- One minute is FRL, the next it's the failing scores at central, and last but not least, it is about racial imbalance. My perception at the last school board meeting was that Dr Carraway did have the school board convinced that this was the only thing that would help. Let's face it; HES scores fell this year, as did all schools in the district. How can HES know if a child would receive FRL, until after they are accepted into the school? How did this become a racial issue? If you take a look, Pathways is 79% Caucasian and is a districted school. Could it be that someone dropped the ball in the school boards last effort in re-districting? I find it appalling that when someone can’t find answers it turn into a racial issue. Can we not make it past this? HES is an awesome school! I have don't think we should have to fight for a school that should be allowed to stand on and of it’s self through its accomplishments. Why not increase the exposure of HES to minorities- if that’s not what is currently being done, if it is being done, then maybe for whatever reason, they just simply don’t want to apply. There seems to be people posting anonymously here and elsewhere that appear to have an axe to grind with HES, while all the while blaming the inequities on HES parents for fighting for the rights that everyone in the district is entitled to. Mr. Scott has been the blunt of criticism for wanting to explore all options instead of just the maybe temporary fix that a merger would bring. Mr. Scott, I think you have done a wonderful and thorough job of placing all of the information on the table and allowing everyone to form their own opinion. I commend you for expressing your first amendment right and not allowing the criticism that you have received to deter you from your efforts to have all of the facts brought forth for everyone to see.
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