Parents Show Up in Force to Fight School Rezoning

The Board of Education of the South Orange Maplewood School District had a major action to take Monday night—the approval of its 2010-2011 budget to meet the submission deadline to the County on Tuesday.

But for scores of parents, the main event was the school rezoning discussion.

Board president Mark Gleason told attendees up front that rezoning would not be voted upon Monday night. Rather, there would be a workshop and public hearing on April 12 at 7 p.m. with plans to adopt a rezoning plan at the April 19 Board of Education meeting.

Public comments on rezoning were therefore limited to 20 minutes total, allowing for six commenters to address the Board. They were followed by a presentation on rezoning by district staff and discussion by the Board members. Nonetheless, the public commenters were anxious to speak, and they spoke with passion.

Henry Sands of Oakland Road addressed the Board, using words such as "despair" and "anger" to describe his feelings about the rezoning and "streamrolling" to describe the process. Sands said the rezoning felt like something that was "happening to us" instead of something that residents were participating in. "I don't see creativity," he said. "I don't see us working together." Sands offered that the process could have been done with more time and better communication. He noted that because of the late notice and the fast timetable, affected families had missed the enrollment deadlines for many private schools.

Kris Knutsen of Plymouth Avenue thanked Superintendent of Schools Brian Osborne and the Board members for their "hard work of the past couple of days"—an allusion to the revamp of the budget that had taken place in the  five days since drastic state aid cuts were announced. But Knutsen had criticisms to make concerning the rezoning process.

"The ability to walk to all the schools—the elementary school, the middle school—and to the Village, this is why we bought our house," said Knutsen, whose family has been rezoned from Tuscan to Clinton School. Knutsen offered a petition that had been signed by more than 250 people—some affected by the rezoning, some not—asking that the district "make sure all other solutions have been exhausted."

Knutsen elicited loud applause when he commented, "Why was the community not advised and engaged in an open discussion a year ago?"

Laurie Brown of Oakland Road asked about "educational equity for the 28 children rejected out of Tuscan," saying she was "not here to devalue Clinton School." But, Brown noted, she had reviewed the 2008-09 reports cards for the schools and she had found that Tuscan scored better than Clinton School. Said Brown, "How can we raise the bar for Clinton? By not sending additional students to a school that is already burdened."

Caryn Emmons of Plymouth Avenue brought up the subject of variances. "How many children attend our school when they should not be there?" she asked. She also noted that, with changes to classrooms related to the outsourcing of special education paraprofessionals, perhaps the district should table rezoning to another year.

After the public comments, Superintendent Osborne addressed some issues directly before ceding the floor to Cheryl Schneider for the rezoning presentation. Osborne explained that when he began at the district "there were lots of variances. It seemed that anyone who asked was getting it." Osborne said he began "seriously" pulling back on variances but that some were still allowed based on caveats such as sibling enrollment, hardship (moving) and health and safety. Osborne said that all parents of students with variances were being informed that the variances will likely not be renewed for this year.

Cheryl Schneider of the district then led a brief presentation on the rezoning process, noting that all the slides could be found on the district website. Viewing a map of the school zones, Schneider noted that the Tuscan and South Mountain schools zones had been enlarged during the last rezoning process over ten years ago when the Seth Boyden district was reduced to allow for opt-in students.

Schneider methodically but quickly ran through the many alternatives that the district considered including portables (too expensive at $500,000 per), the Montrose school (again, a $500,000 per classroom cost, plus the cost of added staffing), moving fifth grade to the middle schools (no room), relocating kindergarten to a hub (again, no room), creating a magnet program (cost and time to develop, plus this option would also involve redistricting), grandfathering students whose streets were rezoned (no room), making Marshall and Jefferson K-5 (also involving redistricting and more full-time employees) and returning transfer students to zoned schools (being adopted).

Schneider also addressed the question of why some much-discussed areas were not rezoned: Golf Island was found to be more than a mile from Jefferson, and rezoning the South Mountain "wedge" would negatively impact the demographic mix at South Mountain.

Schneider finished by saying, "Do not think this is a done deal. We are trying to look into this."

Board members then got their turns, and many of them raised points and asked questions that elicited applause from the audience. "We need to be careful about this," said student rep Seth Wolin, who noted that the "social implications are a bit more important in lower grades." Richard Laine garnered applause for asking, "How high would class size have to go to keep kids" in their current schools?

Beth Daugherty wanted the staff to consider raising class sizes just to grandfather those children who were currently living in rezoned areas.

Board President Mark Gleason wanted to look closer at building capacity at the Montrose school. Looking at the demographic projections and school classroom capacity numbers, Gleason said, "I worry that we could be right back here again. I would like to probe a little deeper." Andrea Wren Hardin asked that district staff consider "the feel of a neighborhood. I encourage you to gain more information about that."

When the Board took a break after the discussion, Henry Sands said he felt that some headway had been made. "They at least came back with some good questions that make it sound like they heard us." But, Sands added, "I want to see data and support for the alternatives."