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BPS to parents with more than one kid: Good luck with that
By adamg on Thu, 10/04/2012 - 7:35am
BPS handout. Photo by Bob Goodman.
Boston school officials last night proposed a limited grandfathering plan that could leave hundreds of families scrambling to get kids to two or more different schools under the major changes in assignment zones proposed to start in 2014.
A handout at last night's School Committee meeting proposed that while students already in a particular school could stay there until they age out, their younger siblings would not get preference at that school if rezoning means they no longer live in the same zone as that school. That could potentially leave parents scrambling to get their kids to and from schools in different directions and might not leave parents enough time to become as enmeshed in the school communities city officials say is the major reason for this latest attempt at redrawing assignment zones.
This contrasts with a proposal by city councilors and state representatives to keep full sibling preference in place.
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Comments
Clear Power Play
On the one hand, grandfathering exacerbates segregation and overenrollment.
On the other hand, BPS uses that as an excuse to weaken the ability of parents to effectively organize and challenge administrators with their own agendas.
See no evidence for your first point,
but entirely agree with the second.
Westward, Ho!?
That clicking sound that you hear is that of people in town checking out suburban real estate listings.
As I said yesterday, this might be the final straw for a fair number of people with kids in the BPS, or even more likely, with kids nearing entry to the BPS.
With all of the other uncertainty facing families because the children in Congress can't get together on anything, the last thing people need is unnecessary uncertainty very close to home.
As I said before, the Mayor has precious little time to step in and end the insanity here.
[On a related note, we often complain on UHub about how the Commonwealth treats Boston like a small child with respect to limiting the number of liquor licenses, etc. Well, here we have an example of why the Commonwealth will not give free reign to Boston or any other municipality over many "local" issues - because the historical record is replete with examples of myopic hyper-local political power plays leading to policies that benefit an incredibly small few at the great expense of the many in certain municipalities. Further, the Commonwealth knows that when the predictable happens and the poop hits the fan, everyone will look to it for the fix or bailout as the case may be.
I believe in the govenmental principle of subsidiarity, but in places where there is a track record of it working poorly, you have to earn it.]
Are you flipping kidding me
I frequently have sympathy for BPS - I truly do - but sometimes....sometimes...its like they're *trying* to piss families off.
Splitting Siblings
Splitting siblings is inconvenient, but I don't see why it's so horrifically inconvenient. Parents whose kids are a few years apart are frequently split between schools, with one in elementary and one in middle, or one in middle and one in high school.
As a kid myself, I had a good number of friends who lived in quality suburban districts who ended up with siblings split between two different elementary schools, or two different middle schools, because the district had opened a new school and redistricted.
If Boston's willing to keep the transportation structure in place for the grandfathered children, I just don't see what the problem is.
Schools have different start times
Which then means different end times of course which you get to coordinate with your workday, different parent council meetings if you want to be involved (which my husband and I really want to - our kids are 3.5 and 6 months). Doubling up on fundraisers, potentially different uniforms that you can't use as hand me downs. These are just the first things that are coming to mind.
The deeper issue for me is I would love to become involved in a school, get to know the teachers, give tours to incoming families, be able to speak to its culture. Juggling that for multiple elementary schools seems unnecessary. Yes, if it winds up that our kids have wildly different temperaments/needs which are better suited to different schools then that's our choice to take on the additional work- but having it thrust on you - argh.
People, don't panic! My 3
People, don't panic! My 3 kids all went to BPS schools K-12. This was in the days of set quotas for members of different races! Because of my own (faulty) family planning choices, they were widely-spaced enough that, at one point, I had a kid in elementary, middle & high school at the same time. We all survived because I was fortunate enough to work part-time as there was another bread winner in the house. They all graduated, went to good colleges and are now very productive adults and good citizens.
That said, I believe in grandfathering & sibling & walk zone preferences. And, I'm relieved I don't have to face today's uncertainties. I'm sure it must be very anxiety-provoking for young families, of all races and ethnicities, that we want to keep in Boston.
Maybe not grounds for panic, but certainly concern.
Without wanting to seem snarky/snippy, I think that you've identified the reason why many people today think that what BPS might do is a huge deal while it seems a little less so to you.
I'm not sure that there are too many households in the City where all of the adults aren't doing as much work as they can find (e.g., several jobs that add up to "full-time" and more). This is one of several reasons why I think this is a bigger deal now than it would have been a generation ago.
Every Bostonian with kids...
...should take a bowel movement upon Arthur Garrity's grave.
Kill the messenger. Uh huh.
Garrity had to do something. The system was segregated horribly and the minority kids were not getting a separate but equal education in any sense of the word.
The real blame lies with the entire racist city government structure that knew damn well that they had underfunded the system as a whole at the expense of minority students. Had they moved to change that in the 1950s, this would NEVER have happened.
Blame the cause of the inequities that led to busing, please. Don't blame the guy who had no choice but to do something about it.
How were the minority kids not getting an equal education?
2+2=4. And that applies if you're black, white, or red with polka dots. You go to school, you listen to the teacher, and you take the test. What's the problem?
Separate !=
You are either a nostalgic fool or a rank idiot.
The conditions in the schools were not equivalent. White kids got clean schools, serviceable books, and better teachers. Black kids got high numbers in rat infested classrooms and had to share books.
What part of RACIST and DISCRIMINATORY do you not get there?
Jeez, take a deep breath
I wasn't alive in the 1970's, and I didn't live in Boston until 2003. So, yes, I'm not fully knowledgeable about Boston school history.
I guess my first question is why was quality control so inconsistent among schools? And why were the schools the black kids attended so disproportionately of poor quality?
I'll take Easy Questions for $400, Alex
The schools for black kids were terrible back then because the people who doled out the school funding had contempt for black people and didn't think black kids deserved to get as much as white kids. That really happened.
Okay
Would it have been possible to fix that by another entity taking over the Boston school budget and improving the inferior schools instead of sticking everyone on a bus? I mean, if Boston is going to be racist, then Massachusetts or the U.S. can make them knock off the crap, right?
Message is clear
Parents should move to the suburbs and save the city money educating their kids! :-)
BPS can have a challenge. Kids at one address could be from roommates, lesbian moms, a Brady Bunch of remarried couples, or last names from various baby daddy's. BPS has to face arguments that allowing biologically related siblings to go to the same school, but not others is unfair, despite being hard to capture in a database.