Kurt Gutknecht, writing in the Fitchburg Star:
Residents of Swan Creek have launched a spirited campaign against plans to bus students from the area to Midvale/Lincoln elementary schools.
A few days after Christmas, 185 households signed a letter [500K PDF] opposing the plan, which a task force had proposed to address overcrowding at several schools in the western part of the Madison Metropolitan School District.
Students from Swan Creek now attend Leopold Elementary School.
The letter was presented at the Jan. 5 meeting of the task force. Another task force is preparing plans for the east side of the district where under enrollment is a greater concern.
According to the letter, said the plan being considered meant the “subdivision is used selfishly by the Madison school district” to “plug holes in a plan that has very little merit” and contradicts an agreement the district made when it exchanged land with the Oregon School District. During the negotiations prior to the land swap, the Madison district said children from Swan Creek would attend Leopold.
The letter cited behavioral and safety issues associated with long bus rides, the negative effects on parent involvement and neighborhood cohesion, and criticized the attempt to use children from the subdivision to achieve balanced income at the schools.
Prasanna Raman, a member of the task force who presented the letter, said busing students from Swan Creek could be a case of reverse discrimination.
UPDATE: Midvale parent Jerry Eykholt sent this letter [pdf] to the Task Force and Swan Creek residents.
Arlene Silveria, a member of the task force who’s running for a seat on the school board, said she was concerned that removing “new” neighborhoods such as Swan Creek from Leopold would endanger the future of the school, whose enrollment might consist of higher than optimum proportion of low-income students.
The task force has generally endorsed transferring students from new subdivisions in Fitchburg instead of those from established neighborhoods.
The task force has been meeting for more than four months to develop three plans for consideration by the board. The recommendations aren’t binding, however, and some members of the task force questioned how much effort they should expend on the proposals.
Members have largely agreed to three plans: one based on a new addition at Leopold, one based on a new school on the far west side and another that included both building projects. At the Jan. 5 meeting, the task force failed to agree on a plan that addressed options if no new space was provided.
Members discussed submitting four plans, or adding the no-construction option to each of the three plans. The task force agreed to meet again Jan. 11 to discuss the plans, which must be presented to the board before the end of the month.
Pending additional changes, the three plans associated with new building involve a change in schools for some Fitchburg residents. One would send students from Swan Creek to Midvale–Lincoln, although these students would stay at Leopold if one more classroom were incorporated in the Leopold addition. Fifty-six students in the High Ridge Trail area would go to Thoreau instead of Chavez.
Another plan would send all students south of Lacy Road to Chavez, but the 50-minute bus ride was longer than the 45-minute maximum recommended by the task force.
The most contentious deliberations involved a plan that would not involve any new construction. The initial proposal, which was slightly modified at the Jan. 5 meeting, would move more than 400 students and affect 13 schools.
Several members questioned whether they should even consider such a plan because the task force had previously decided that a satisfactory solution must include new classrooms.
Since the no-building plan involved a period of only three years, some members said it was inconsistent with the task force’s mandate to formulate long-range plans.
Others said some opposition to a 2004 referendum, which would also have authorized an addition to Leopold, was due to the failure of the board too present an alternative plan.
Some observers, who did not want to be identified, questioned whether race had a role in the opposition of residents of the largely white and affluent Swan Creek subdivision to Midvale/Lincoln. However, Swan Creek residents are asking to remain at Leopold, which is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse schools in the district.
The board is unlikely to endorse any arrangements that appear to show preferential treatment lest it be flooded with similar requests. The failure of Fitchburg to approve last year’s Leopold referendum may also weigh in the board’s decisions, although it’s not a factor that’s likely to be discussed openly.
Task force members occasionally had trouble remembering the numerous boundary changes and other aspects of the plans. Some were concerned that representatives of the school board assisting task force didn’t accurately implement their decisions. There were also complaints that some of the options considered by the task force were inconsistent with guidelines they had previously endorsed.
The lengthy deliberations have taken their toll on members of the task force. “I’ve actually lost my marbles on it,” said Annette Miller. “I really don’t want to have any more meetings,” especially since there’s no guarantee the board will endorse any of the task of the group’s recommendations.
I have been an active observer and advocate through the West/Memorial task force deliberations. I will note that the Swan Creek area has not presented any alternatives to the overcrowding at Leopold other than the “don’t move use” position.
Many families in the established neighbhorhoods have worked hard to overturn earlier plans that displaced residents in long-established neighborhoods from their schools as part of a “domino effect” that occurs when trying to make room for the new development’s residents on the periphery.
I and many many others strongly believe it is wrong — both for the school and the district as a whole, as well as for the City of Madison’s viability — to dismantle stable central city neighbhorhoods and their schools, thereby creating disatisfaction among the very residents who have long supported the MMSD. This will simply encourage central city neighborhood families with resources to either opt-out to private school or move to suburbs — thus eroding the strength and economic viability of Madison’s central city and its established neighbhorhoods.
The reasoning for moving Swan Creek goes as follows: The last referendum failed and thus no new space is available and Leopold is overcrowded. Those of us who care about MMSD will continue to try to get a referendum passed to build new space (and get Fitchburg residents to support the referendum with the same strength that Madison’s central city neighbhorhoods did), as new space is clearly needed on the west side.
But until that happens: Given that those families on the periphery built or bought homes in new developments with already over-crowded schools, they will in the interim need to attend schools where space exists. At the moment, the space available on the west side is Midvale Lincoln.
If not this, then a sample alternative “domino effect” scenario, which many many people reject, is as follows:
New peripheral growth into Leopold, displacing northern parts of Leopold to Theoreau, and displacing northern parts of Theoreau to Franklin-Randall, and then displacing western parts of Franklin-Randall to Midvale-Lincoln. So, the families in long-established central city west side neighbhorhoods have their neighbhorhood broken up and are pulled from their long-established school and sent on long bus rides to Midvale-Lincoln, in order to allow the new residents in new subdevelopments on Madison’s periphery to avoid a bus ride to Midvale Lincoln. Logical? Fair? I think not.
Other ideas are welcome, but not ones that disrupt long stable schools and neighbhorhoods in the central city in order to accomodate over-crowding at the periphery.
This discussion has been exhaustively explored on the long range task force on-line forum at http://www.mmsd.org/boe/longrange.
Thanks to the note from the active observer (Donna). With so many people aware of the issues, we’re on a better footing than last time.
I’m a member of the Task Force, representing Midvale. I think Swan Creek residents should be commended for their involvement and for raising a good point about the distance to Midvale – it’s a long bus ride. For those options in which a Leopold addition is not considered, there will need to be fairly significant busing from the Leopold and southern Thoreau areas to other schools, Thoreau, Midvale-Lincoln, Chavez, or Franklin-Randall. With the current capacities and expected growth, we needed to come up with a plan that ultimately took care of 80-120 students from the Leopold area (5 yr plan). With our current capacities, we would be tight at Thoreau, Chavez, and Franklin-Randall. Thoreau’s space opens up a bit, but Franklin, in particular, may be facing overcrowding, too. Every one of these schools will likely be affected (the disruption to Thoreau in some of the posted plans is large). That leaves Midvale-Lincoln to share a large portion of the changes. While another option may be found for Swan Creek in the short term, I supported Midvale-Lincoln as the target for Swan Creek under the no-addition options.
I wrote a memo to the Swan Creek residents that I gave to one of the Leopold reps (Prasana Raman). It suggests that K2 space might be added to Lincoln (Lincoln already has Open Classroom for early grades) to accommodate neighborhoods like Swan Creek. A bit of shuffling would have to be done, but I think that would address, fairly efficiently, the long bus ride concerns of Swan Creek and some other Leopold neighborhoods. We still need to hear back from the school administrators and larger community on this idea, though. It is certainly not an idea that has received any real discussion by the task force.
For a copy of the memo, you can e-mail me (geykholt@charter.net) – or view it here:
http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/SwanCreekMemo.pdf
Swan Creek has more concerns such as quality, perceptions, and low-income percentages. I simply encourage the neighbors to get to know more about Midvale-Lincoln. Folks can start with the website, they can contact me or other parents, they can call the schools, or visit. We’re a diverse school and we’ve got a lot to be proud about.
I’d like to encourage everyone who reads this to think 5yrs out (not just for the next two years). What kind of situation will we be in at that time? What will happen to SAGE and general class sizes? Do we care? Doesn’t it make sense to make the major changes soon, and add capacity in areas where there is overcrowding so that we also have an asset for future planning? Or, are we planning our way into another set of impasses?
While going through this exhaustive process – I gained a lot of appreciation for the many fine schools around Madison. Our administration and school staffs are doing many things right. Let’s “buy-in” to the whole package for an even stronger school _system_. Start by supporting your own school, but also work to build and maintain a dynamic and thriving school system. That means learning the concerns of our neighboring schools and putting them on the same table with our concerns.
Thanks to all who have given input for this process. This is just a point of clarification. I believe that Prasanna Raman was designated as a representative of her ethnic community rather than as a Leopold rep. Rusty Shoemaker Allen represented Leopold. Community members would want to know that each school had one representative and one alternate. Thanks. Marcia
Jerry Eykholt’s final sentence says it all. We’ve been using this approach on the north and east sides for about 4 years now and it’s been able to get us through some difficult times!
Thanks for the very thoughtful, well articulated discussion of primary school boundaries. Donna is dead-on about the need to maintain the cohesiveness of the central city neighborhoods.
That said, I hope those worried about where their young students attend school will also weigh in on what’s happening at the high schools. By the time your children get there, I suspect you won’t like what you find. Long bus rides versus a challenging high school curriculum—hmmm.
I am curious if in any of these discussions attention has been given to the lack of racial and income diversity in the Franklin/Randall pair. None of the current proposals appear to address this.
TJM
Income distribution among the schools was a substantial point of discussion with the task force. (Again, I was not a member but an active observer.) I need to point out several things about your question:
1. The Franklin-Randall pair has the same level of low-income as Crestwood, Van Hise, Shorewood, and Chavez on the west side and to Lapham-Marquette on the east side (all approximately 25%). So this is not unique to only one school. The task of income balancing among schools is extremely complex and requires a lot more boundary changes, bussing, and lots of unintended and unanticipated consequences than can be captured in a quick answer here. As well, in the case of Franklin-Randall, it appears that it’s current income ratio has evolved, having been more mixed when the pair was first established. The school pair has been perceived as very successful, thus attracting many families to the F-R attendance area and raising property values and housing prices around Franklin school in particular, thus raising the average income in the attendance area. So, it raises complicated questions like whether a school district can be in the business of dismantling school communities as that, as a result of their success, experience changing demographics. Suffice it to say that income balancing among schools proved to be outside of the main mission of the task force (which was addressing over-crowding) and needed to be put aside, except that the task force continually paid attention to see that their plans would not increase the poverty level at any particular school and they tried to reduce it where possible.
2. Franklin-Randall does not lack racial diversity. For example, my daughter’s 1st grade classroom of 15 kids has 7 Spanish-speaking kids of Mexican original. My son’s classroom of 15 has a two African American, three Hmong, and one Hispanic.
3. Anyone with interest in details about the task force discussions, data, etc, should check the task force web site at http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/boe/longrange.