Here are a couple of posts by Dave Weber in the The Orlando Sentinel School Zone blog regarding possible elementary school rezoning in Seminole County. Follow the links to read the posts on-line and post a comment.
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Seminole sneaks in school rezones
December, 16 2009 12:03 AM
Good morning, Seminole County parents! Your kid may have been rezoned to a new school last night!
While you may have been at home helping Ethan with math or reading Madison a bedtime story, the School Board quietly and without notice decided to change attendance zones for Sanford area elementary schools. Wilson, Bentley, Idyllwilde, Wicklow, Crystal Lake, Pine Crest, Hamilton and Midway elementary schools are affected.
North Seminole parents for the last dozen years were able to choose from among schools in east or west clusters. The idea was to provide choice and diversity in an area where schools too often had racial imbalance because of old residential patterns.
Under the new plan, kids who live within a half mile or so of any of the eight elementary schools must attend that school. I’m still trying to decipher the numbers, but it looks like somewhere between 400 and 700 kids might be affected.
Officials say the change, which would take place progressively over the next couple of years, will save $200,000 a year in bus transportation. Buses now are crisscrossing and duplicating routes to get every kid where they are supposed to be.
The School Board in the past has bristled at charges from some parents that it is insensitive to their concerns or leaves them out of the decision making process.
But the perhaps unsettling part about the rezone is that it came out of nowhere, at least as far as the public is concerned. The School Board last spring briefly discussed reducing cluster school choice as a money saving device, but no more was heard until Superindent Bill Vogel put an innocuous item on Tuesday’s School Board agenda: “Elementary cluster attendance zones – powerpoint presentation. “ The presentation was to come at the end of the meeting under the typically “FYI” superintendent’s report, where odds and ends are quickly rattled off before the meeting concludes.
But Vogel also has a habit of developing last minute “addendums” to the School Board’s agenda, which is published a week before meetings so the public can be aware of what is going on. Vogel told me his staff wrapped up work on the cluster rezone proposal, so he decided to switch it to the addendum as a full fledged item for a School Board decision.
These addendums typically come out online the day of the meeting, and don’t really give anyone much time to be aware of a topic of interest. While other school districts typically limit the allowed “good cause” last minute additions, Seminole crams a bunch of stuff in last minute at every meeting, and the School Board always agrees it is for “good cause.”
But this Tuesday Vogel neglected to publish the addendum online before the meeting, so there was not even brief public notice on the rezoning topic that might have interested some or many parents.
Vogel and School Board Chairman Sandy Robinson told me after the meeting that parents and others still will have time to comment on the proposed changes before they become law. It’s true, another vote will be required.
But anyone who follows these school rezoning things (think the Lake Brantley High flare up five years ago) knows that by the time the School Board sanctifies a rezoning plan, as it did Tuesday, it’s all over but the hoo-rahs.
As I said, I’m still trying to sort out the details of the surprise school rezoning. If you think you might be affected or know someone who is, drop me an e-mail or give me a call.
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_educ...+School+Zone%29
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Seminole school rezone saga continues
December, 16 2009 4:39 PM
On Wednesday retrospect, Seminole school officials are fuzzy on exactly what occurred Tuesday evening regarding attendance zones for Sanford area elementary schools.
It isn’t a rezoning. It is a rezoning, but it didn’t really happen yet. No decision was made. A decision was made, but it isn’t really binding.
And: Even though the board already has decided what it intends to do, parents still will be able to express their opinions.
At issue is the school board’s surprise vote Tuesday to require students within about a half mile of eight Sanford area schools to attend those schools. Parents have had choice of schools under the “cluster” plan adopted 12 years ago as part of a federal court settlement of a school desegregation case against the district.
Officials want to cut down on school choice because busing students is expensive.
School Board Chairman Sandy Robinson said Wednesday that she did not really consider the issue rezoning.
“This is not a rezone,” she said.
But when I talked to School Board Attorney Ned Julian he repeatedly referred to it as a rezone of schools. He also said that the board’s vote Tuesday was just a response to an “information item,” and not a real vote for any purpose other than to get a sense of the board’s position. The board will have a public hearings and a couple more votes before the new plan is set in concrete, he said.
Julian also said that the board is not required to list everything that is going to be on a school board agenda, and can add things at the last minute. That’s how the cluster schools rezone/not rezone showed up Tuesday. And it’s also the letter of the law, although intent may be quite different, according to a Florida attorney general’s opinion that says items that could be controversial should not be put on agendas at the last minute, shutting out the public.
Julian promises that the board will officially vote next month to advertise the proposed attendance zone changes. A public hearing will follow some weeks later, he said.
That gives the public time to sway board votes, Julian said.
But as we pointed out in our earlier blog post, that doesn’t often happen. Usually, in rezoning issues, when the board comes to the point of making a decision as it did last night, it sticks to it and that’s that. But usually at this point in the process, the public has been well informed and not kept in the dark about a proposed rezoning.
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_educ...-continues.html