More thoughts on the RUSD board postponing redistricting

I have had 24 hours or so to assimilate the recent RUSD board decision to postpone a decision on redistricting, and I have a few more thoughts on the matter. Dr. Warner, the board member that proposed creating consensus by reaching out to the community for answers, does make a couple of excellent points.

1. This board, and past boards, have not effectively reached out to the community. All of the past efforts were kind of last-minute hodge-podge attempts, and the forums that were held were often not well attended by many sectors of the community.

2. Past community efforts have not built consensus in the community. I believe it is because most of these community efforts were broad-based and open-ended, meaning there were ambiguous questions and people were free to discuss just about anything they wanted.

While these kind of forums are great, what ended up happening (I believe) is that the faciliators asked, "What would make a great school district"? to 400 people and got back 400 different answers.

I'm not an expert on data collection, but maybe any future efforts should drill down to the answers that board and administration are actually seeking.

I do know this, however, any hardline action either way will most likely tick off at least 50% of the population. It is clear, in my mind anyway, that some sort of compromise is needed.

We need good schools for EVERY child in Racine, and the parents are the best judge of what school is best for their child. It could be a magnet school, a school down the street, or a school close to the parent's place of employment.

We already have school choice within the district, and it is extremely popular, why not just expand it and create a 100% choice district?