January 7, 2009
A First Person Report from the Godwin School Redistricting Meeting
After attending the Henrico County School redistricting meeting tonight at Godwin High School, I just want to say, there has got to be a better way!
Godwin was swamped with people, and I have to say the county did not anticipate the amount of folks who were attending, because they had only one police officer on Pump Road to help control traffic and it was backed up in both directions on Pump Road. I waited for over 15 minutes just to wait my turn to turn into the school, and as I left 30 minutes later, there were still folks waiting to turn into the parking lot. (At least by this time, they had added another officer). To make matters more complicated, residents of some nearby neighborhoods walked to Godwin to make a point that they lived close enough to walk, but were being rezoned out of the Godwin district. With the gale-force wind and Nor’Easter conditions, and the darkness, it made for a treacherous night.
Having reviewed the options online, I proceeded to collect a packet of info so that I could leave a written comment. But I couldn’t help but think this could have all been done much more efficiently on the Internet. I mean this is the 21st century. Why make us all come out and flock to a school, struggle to park, get stuck in traffic and everything, when you could have received my neatly written typed comments via email or some other form of Internet communication? Are they planning to really consider all of our comments? Will they type them up so that they are legible, or somehow classify our descent?
What does leaving a comment really mean? I had one Henrico Zoning worker ask if I had already left my comment via email, and she must have seen my eyes get big, at the thougth of it all being so simple. She was just teasing! In her next sentence she assured me that wasn’t really possible since the form for commenting was not available online anyway.
What does this all mean? I’m not sure. I do remember seeing an email address on the green comment sheet, which I turned in, but there is not one on any of the white documents that I was given to take home. I think I remember seeing something that said all comments were due by January 9th. If anyone has the email address we can submit comments to, I’d love to publish it here and fill up their email box. Just leave a comment if you have it.
In the meantime, I’d like to know why children who live in Henrico’s Near West End can’t go to Tuckahoe Middle and Freeman High School when the projected capacity under any of the redistricting plans ranges from 81-95 percent. What would be so bad about it being at 100 percent? And why can’t the students who live closest to the schools go to the schools? Why instead should they be bused up to 6 miles away, to a totally different side of town?
The e-mail on the green form is wjrichter@henrico.k12.va.us.
You can also fax the green form to 804-652-3734 if you couldn’t fill it out that night.
Thanks Steve! Ok guys, there you have it. If you couldn’t make it to the meeting you can email or fax to the number/address above.
I went to the Monday forum; while everyone ‘official’ I spoke with was pleased that so many turned out, they also appeared to be surprised. I believe it to be a good thing that information was available on the web first. That gave folks the opportunity to see what the various options were, and since they weren’t happy, they came out to have their say.
There is a comment form available on the website, but it is different than the one you received if you attended in person. The one difference I noted is that the one handed out in person included a line to indicate your neighbourhood/subdivision name.
All of the received comments will be typed up (by Cropper and HCPS staff) in time for the next subcommittee meetings Feb 9-11. Frankly, I hope we receive them well before that to start reading and understanding them before we have to re-tackle the maps.
Leave the schools south of Broad alone. Solve the overcrowding from Deep Run by moving their students to the new high school. Why is this so complicated? We are also moving Deep Run students into Godwin to make it as overcrowded as the current Deep run. Why? All High school proposals put Godwin as the older school at overcapacity and Deep Run, the new state of the art school and the new high school at under capacity.
We are reducing the diversity from Freeman & Tuckahoe Middle by moving the Crestview students out of their current district and replacing them with students from and an IB program and Godwin. Something is wrong here.
Quick correction to my above post: our next committee meetings are Jan 20-22.
And Roberta, I’m with you. I don’t understand the middle & high school options at all.
Kathleen doesn’t know anything !!! And all of you have way too much time on your hands to know what it takes to balance the numbers. You can’t be at 100% capacity and still have an excellent educational enviroment. Everyone has to move and if you want to keep your kids at the current schools then fund them yourselves and stop blaming others for your shorsightedness as to changing population demographics and building houses one on top of the other.All the whining in the world isn’t going to change the maps or the numbers so suck it up!!!
The original post about 100% capacity wasn’t mine. I don’t believe that “everyone has to move” in order to balance the numbers. Some will, yes; and ultimately, perhaps even the folks of this neighbourhood. But there is no blame here, just questions. I don’t believe anyone in this neighbourhood intends to just “suck it up,” so if you’re bothered by the questions, please troll some other blog.
There is no need to move out of the neighborhood in order to have our children attend Henrico’s best schools. Under No Child Left Behind, PARENTS CAN EXERCISE THEIR SCHOOL CHOICE OPTION AND DEMAND THAT THEIR STUDENTS ATTEND SAFER SCHOOLS THAT ARE ACCREDITED. IT’S ONE OF THE FEW GIFTS THAT BUSH LEFT FOR US.