I’m not even going to link to the article in today’s News Journal, because it really doesn’t say much and the reporter missed the opportunity to report on the real story – a story that involved parents and citizens all over the district are discussing around their kitchen tables, on blogs and at work. This story has several parts.
First, not all Red Clay Schools are created equal. For an interesting discussion on this check out Kilroy’s posts on Red Clay (there’s a lot of them) and this conversation taking place on The Seventh Type. Yes, we’ve been over this, and if you need to catch up check out my posts here and here.
One of the problems I’m seeing is the split in the District. Suburbanites want their neighborhood suburban schools. City parents don’t want their schools to suffer because of these new schools, and want the District to invest in these schools. Why aren’t we all Red Clay citizens? Why is there this divide that pits us against one another? The answer: Choice and Neighborhood Schools. We no longer function as one district with one goal – great schools. We now operate by fighting amongst ourselves over funding and resources for “our” school.
The split really comes into focus when it comes to improving city schools, because there are really only two ways to achieve this:
1. Put desirable programs into city schools which would attract students from different socio-economic backgrounds. This approach would not only create balance in high poverty schools, but diversifying the population would lead to even more programs and enrichment classes that high poverty schools tend not to have. When advanced, challenging classes are pulled from high poverty schools aren’t we essentially saying that those children don’t need them?
2. Fully fund high poverty schools, which given existing funds would mean all other schools giving up something.
Personally, I prefer the first option. Red Clay obviously disagrees. Everyone knew what would happen to city schools, as well as certain suburban elementary schools, when Brandywine Springs opened, and yet, RCCD never addressed the problem. Today they address the problem within the reality that these high poverty schools are just a given, that they’re here to stay and, other than adding programs specifically catered to high needs schools (which is commendable, but not enough) there is no plan to make these schools attractive to populations outside their feeder zones. And as more schools struggle, Red Clay’s answer to this problem always seems to be… let’s build a new suburban school.
And they are pretty determined to make this happen. Remember this answer from RCCD FAQs on what would happen if the new school wasn’t approved:
We would need to consider a number of options.
• Readjusting feeder patterns in most of our elementary schools to shift the population to our schools in the city. This would be disruptive to all of our schools, and impact important programs in place at our city schools.
• Reconsider the BSS K-8 model.
• Continue to rent trailers, and add additional trailers[emphasis mine]
As a city resident this didn’t bother me, but I wasn’t Red Clay’s intended audience.
I’m also not the intended audience of the newly scheduled referendum meeting being held tomorrow night at Skyline – Which is, as of this post, still not listed on the District’s main page or on their referendum site. Thank goodness for blogs!
Perhaps, Red Clay’s time would be better spent on it’s existing schools. Check out RCCD’s school profiles. Approximately 11 schools under academic watch. For comparison, the Brandywine School District (which has taken option #1 stated above) has 1 school under academic watch – and that one school now houses the BSD’s IB program.
Perhaps… Red Clay should focus on improving their existing schools before building another school. Just sayin’