Just another RUSD study session?

Next Thursday, at 6:00 pm, the RUSD will be holding another special study session at the Administrative Office. According to the agenda from the RUSD website, the long awaited results of the latest community survey will be available. This was the survey done this last fall that asked the residents opinions on such matters on equity and access; this was also the survey where they over-sampled the minority population in order to get back enough results to make it statistically significant. The results of the Edulog (the demographer) study will hopefully be available also - this is the study we were SUPPOSED to see at the end of September!

Without the results of these two studies, any decision on redistricting/bussing would be based on personal preference and not on facts, so I do applaud the board for not acting in haste. With that said, the board does need to act quickly and decide what to do. Simply from the shift in populations over the last 15-20 years, some of our schools are overcrowded and some are woefully underutilized. Administration has given the board until the end of February to come to a decision if any of those proposed changes would take effect for the 2007-2008 school year.

Deciding what our district will look like will not be an easy one; I predict the board will put off the decision until the Supreme Court weighs in on the two most recent cases of equity in our nations’ schools. However, I anticipate many arguments about which “method” is better – neighborhood schools or busing for integration. Which is better? What are the potential downfalls? Over the next few days, I will try to examine some of these issues…