Dr. Rhodes,
As a Hillsborough Elementary parent and a school board candidate, I wanted to take a moment to congratulate you and your staff, particularly Dr. Morton and Mr. Gilbert, on a job well done.
You were given a very negative task by members of our current Board, but rather than succumb to the negativity at hand, you made lemonade with those lemons. You were asked to expel a very small number of children from the only school they had ever known.
Your team did its job and reported on progress utilizing the board’'s original charge. However, by coming up with an alternative plan, you and your staff went above and beyond to fulfill the wishes of the board while protecting our children. For that, my family and I, as well as many others that I represent, are grateful.
It was strange for me last evening. I was so grateful and smiling, but I still had a pit in my stomach. I felt guilty about my relief. Yes, the educational opportunity for my kids and other HES kids had been protected, however, nothing had changed with regard to the discourse at hand.
- The focus of the Board is still on SES, not student performance or school improvement.
- It is quite evident that none of this was ever about helping Central Elementary School or Efland Cheeks Elementary School.
- Finally, there is still the question of turning away federal funds, earmarked to help ECES and CES, in order to avoid Title 1 status and disallowing parents the right to pull their children out of failing schools.
Thank You,
Jeff Michalski
Parent
School Board Candidate
6 comments:
I am glad that you are interested in the CES family! Thank you for caring about us!! We have been told for many years that HES parents stuck their noses up at us, and it just aint true! Thank you! Ignor that fool Brown because she just says stuff so she can go back to her street and act like a big shot. She told me 4 years ago that HES was a school that was created to close CES. She said she'd stick up for me and my children, and she would make sure that this school would be stopped. I believed everything she told me, and I found out that she was playing me. The other guy told whose no longer their told me the same sad story. We need to come together instead of being driven apart by liars.
"The other guy told whose no longer their told me the same sad story."
Are you referring to Dennis Whitling?
BTW, we at HES were fed a lot of lies about CES, too. There is a two way street in the misinformation, and the main two sources is Dennis and Liz. Debbie didn't mind landing a few jabs about HES being elite, but when she got counterpunched on this blog she did a 180 and toed the line. Liz never toed the line. Dennis? He may be toeing a different line in the near future.
Thank you CES parent for your acknowledgement that you feel as betrayed by the elected officials as the HES parents do. I agree with you that we need to come together to support the interests of not only our children but all the children of Orange County. Afterall, moving beyond the elementary grades, our kids will be attending school together and we want them all to be successful. I am hopeful that the next officials in office will be more enlightened and view the system as a whole, not pieces to be replaced or discarded. It's time to put plans in place to make sure all the children in the county are educated and successful.
HES Parent
From The Daily Tar Heel
“After a year of heated debate about how to balance economic diversity in Orange County Schools, Board of Education members decided Monday that all students who currently attend Hillsborough Elementary School will be allowed to return.
But a student districted for Efland-Cheeks or Central elementary schools who wants to enter Hillsborough Elementary’s kindergarten class must either have a low socioeconomic status or a sibling already at the school.”
From this and the caps on enrollment noted in the presentation posted, it appears that the effect of the Board’s plan is still to discriminate against children based on family SES, but now only against those children who live in the two districts with the failing schools, and mostly rising kindergartners? It’s great that the children fortunate enough to be at HES now will be allowed to remain, but this plan is still unconscionable. The Board has moved down from singling out the five, six, and seven year olds for discrimination to now the four and five year olds not yet in school who don’t have the right SES.
If there’s space at good schools and you’re not offering it to children at failing schools, for whatever reason, you are hurting those children - plain, obvious, and simple as that. The Board should be ashamed for forcing children into the failing schools when, as they have done this year, they could continue to allow them the chance to other schools that are performing better. And not to mention also have federal money to help improve the failing schools as well.
Also, I’d hate to be a home owner in either Central’s or Efland Cheeks’ school district and be thinking about selling my home. Leaving new families with nothing but failing schools as choices is certainly a good argument for all county residents to support a Board of Education that will reverse this inane policy. Residents might not care too much about the schools if they don’t have kids in them, but they certainly care about their property values.
People, especially those with kids obviously, do look at school districts when looking where to buy there home. It’s part of the “location, location, location” mantra. But assuming you’re not economically disadvantaged, you’d be ill-advised to buy a home in these districts if you’ve young children or were planning a family.
Wow...well said!
anonymous august 8 6:11,
It was the man who left the Board because his hand got stuck in the cookie jar!! He's a talking out of both sides of his mouth!
I knew Brown was not on the up and up after she voted for this original plan. She told me that she would never vote against this merger!! She said we would get money to educate our kids, and the only way was to merge!
She critzizes you, but she has talked so much smack about HES that she's getting what she deserves! She hate Mr. Scott, and the other person she strongly dislikes is an Ashley. She mimicks these people, and she said she did that because you did the same to us! Found out that she makes up her facts and then tries to make others believe it!
I'm sorry for passing my judgment on HES! I'm ashamed, and I hope everyone can forgive me! I believed a story that was not true!
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