No one enjoys the process of drawing new school district lines, but advocates for North Rowan High School have good reason to seek changes. They deserve other schools’ support.
In an ideal world, all high schools would be the size of North, whose enrollment was 667 on the 20th day of school. That’s big enough to have some diversity in course offerings and small enough for faculty and administrators to get to know their students.
Unfortunately, it’s also about the size of most middle schools in this area ó even though high schools have four grades and middle schools have only three. The biggest drawback for North has been in athletics, where it falls into a conference with other small (and smaller) schools. Athletics are not the top priority, but this problem has academic ramifications ó longer bus trips for student athletes. If using only 54 percent of the school’s capacity is not reason enough to change, cutting into students’ classes and homework time certainly should be. That puts North students at a disadvantage.
Agreeing with redistricting in theory is one thing ó how the board carries it out is another. The board and administration have more questions to answer before anyone should make a final decision.
– Consequences: While North has 667 students, here are figures for the county’s other schools: Salisbury, 941; South, 1,002; West, 1,148; Carson, 1,181; and East, 1,182. Can school board members ensure that solving North’s enrollment problem won’t cause problems elsewhere? What could the unintended consequences be?
– Demographics: What would be the socio-economic makeup of each school’s student body under the three redistricting plans that consultants submitted to the school board? There’s no law requiring schools to have a certain demographic makeup, but the school board would be irresponsible to proceed without asking for such data and considering the impact.
– Detailed maps: What does it take to get complete, up-to-date maps ó and keep them that way? Already the board has talked about making small revisions. Anyone who paid attention to last-minute changes in the redistricting of a few years ago knows better than to trust a map. The movement of a few blocks or a small neighborhood may seem like a negligible, last-minute revision to school board members, but to the families in those areas, it’s a life-changing decision. As the process proceeds, the public should have a chance to respond to any further changes before the board takes a final vote. No surprises.
– Fairness: How do you define equity for the high schools, and what’s the best way to achieve or improve it? The board has given tentative approval to a plan that leaves only Salisbury High’s lines the same, which some people believe does not fairly spread the inconvenience of this change. The board can’t ignore those protests; it must determine if leaving Salisbury as is makes the situation worse for the other schools when it comes to demographics and resources, or has no effect at all.