Déjà vu

It looks as if the district boundary lines will stay the same. For now. Everyone seems to be happy about it.

What is that old saying? Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it?

We have been down this path before. We have a problem, form a committee, and do nothing.

The bus committee touted the other night is a perfect example. Last year the board president put together a committee to study bussing. They pulled employees from their regular duties for hours on end to study and supposedly revamp district bussing. Make it more efficient, you know. In the end, they did nothing.

But we have also traveled this same redistricting road too. So today, I dug through the garage and found the Wayback Machine. Mr. Peabody is on his way over.

To understand what is going on, you need to understand the dynamics of the Cuyahoga Falls City School District. We used to be teeming with children. The neighborhood school I attended was K-6 with 4 classrooms per grade. That same school today is K-5, 3 classrooms per grade and encompasses 2 additional school building districts. That’s a huge decrease in enrollment over 25 years.

Ah, Mr. Peabody has arrived. Let’s go. We’ll set the dials for 1982.

I was mere babe. I heard some talk of lower enrollment than in years past and the next thing you knew, three Cuyahoga Falls schools were closed. My dad said kids were consolidated. I felt like a product. Little did I know it then, but I was. And just like in private industry, the cost of the product had to be kept down. But for different reasons. Dad said the same thing was happening at GM. They might close his plant and consolidate too. Times were gettin’ tough.

Shortly after this, Stow faced a similar crisis. But they had some forward thinking people on their school board. They knew that this declining enrollment thing wasn’t a fad. It was a steady measurable thing. So they tore down buildings, built some new buildings, and reconfigured their entire district. They set up grade leveled buildings. They rightly assumed that as enrollment fluctuated across the city, it could be easily adjusted for by adding or eliminating classrooms per grade level. Since then Stow has seen a boom in new housing. But I haven’t seen any major school realignments in Stow.

In fact if you notice the two districts that seem to be constantly moving students, realigning boundaries and closing buildings are two of the three that are still in neighbor school configurations in Summit County. Akron and Cuyahoga Falls. Barberton is the other. The rest of Summit County school districts are grade level configured, or a close hybrid. Coincidently, they are also the three out of five districts in Summit County that are in the “needs improvement” status academically.

4 years ago we were told that there was a financial crisis. The students of Newberry and Sill paid the price. There are some that will tell you that everyone paid a price, but I’m here to tell you that no one suffered like the kids that went to these schools did. It was a smack in the face to everyone that paid taxes in this neighborhood; I mean once again we were being asked to close our school. But the emotional toll on the kids’ that were fed the “love your school” propaganda for years was immeasurable. These were their schools, their teachers, their principal.

That’s why I find this quote in today’s Akron Beacon Journal so insulting. “Board Vice President Therese Dunphy acknowledged that Falls residents have an affection for their neighborhood schools. ''There's a sense of community with the building they're in,'' she said.” Really? This from a woman that has had 3 years to offer a solution to the spending and class size disparities and has offered nothing but lip service.

9 months ago the administration indicated a need to make cuts and make drastic changes due to the possible mandate of all day kindergarten. They asked the board to decide what was important, what should be looked at to cut, to save, basically what were our priorities and focus. I offered my idea. No one else did.

Then they asked the same of the community a month later. 5 forums were held and suggestions were offered. The administration took what they had to work with and presented the findings. Now the board, that sat back and did nothing, wants to do something. They don’t like what was offered from the people they pay to do this work. Now they want to form a committee. I’m disgusted.

Why? Because we just had this proposed redistricting committee.

Get back in the Wayback Machine, Sherman. Set the dial for 2004. Remember the 2nd set of building closings I mentioned above? Well it started here in 2004. We are all tip toeing through the daisies until one day we are told an evil troll has destroyed our finances. It is dire. Much will have to be sacrificed to the Holy document known as “The Five-Year Forecast”. And of course, the district will form a committee. It shall be called- “The Plan for Excellence Committee”. Of course there are always those that can’t conform to the status quo. They are commonly called rabble-rousers by administrators. The rabble-rousers formed their own committee and did some home work.

This is getting long, so I’ll leave you with this ‘til tomorrow. While the rabble-rousers were toiling over our cauldrons, the school district was busy forming committees, sub-committees and focus groups. All of which I’ve come to despise but I accept them as it is all these people know. One of the sub-committees formed was the reconfiguration committee. Oddly enough it was co-chaired by two Silver Lake residents. The rabble-rousers raised a fuss and the district reluctantly allowed one Cuyahoga Falls resident to join. I couldn’t wait to see what he outcome of redistricting would be....

Tomorrow... The Recommendations from the Reconfiguration Committee.