Rezoning task force recommends neighborhood schools with provisions

Although the phrase “neighborhood schools” has many different meanings, Metro Schools will likely be moving much closer to that model if a proposed student assignment plan is approved.

The proposal may gain the support of many who have argued that racial re-segregation would be the result of a return to neighborhood schools, provided that the district and school board find a way to fully guarantee that schools in socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhoods receive more resources than other schools, and if services including transportation are in place to ensure that the kids in those neighborhoods have choices.

“Neighborhood schools is a catchphrase. We hear it all the time. And it means different things to different people,” said Mark North, an MNPS school board member and chair of the district’s first community task force devoted to student assignment. “No matter what we call it, we must always respect the lessons of the past and insist that every student in every school have the equal opportunity to an excellent education. That’s the goal of this task force.”

The task force’s proposal is massive, and stands to shuffle thousands of Metro schools. It’s the second such plan the district has considered in the last year. The last one was proposed to the board by MNPS, rather than by a task force, and was largely scrapped by former Director of Schools Pedro Garcia shortly before Garcia’s resignation.

The 11-member task force, which includes district residents selected by each school board member as well as North and an appointee of Mayor Karl Dean, has met weekly since January to create its proposal.

Larry Collier, MNPS’s director of student assignment, was active in the planning of both proposals. Collier said Wednesday that about 60 to 70 percent of the school-by-school changes included in the new plan mirror those of the old plan. The biggest difference between the two, he said, is that the new one specifies that additional resources be channeled to schools in socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

“It emphasizes the needs of children,” Collier said. “I cannot emphasize enough how [well] this task force worked together.”

The proposed plan would include the closing of five schools: Bass Middle, Brookmeade Elementary, Cora Howe Elementary, Ewing Park Middle and Martha Vaught Middle. Closing of the schools is designed to alleviate the problem of schools operating below capacity — 21 MNPS schools are less than 70 percent full, district officials said — and would bring a total cost savings of more than $4.5 million.

Board chair Marsha Warden said it’s important that the district devote more money to “people and programs” than to maintenance of underutilized buildings.

“We have been, shall we say, chastised by two sitting mayors to deal with capacity issues,” Warden said.

Plan eliminates noncontiguous zones

As widely expected, the proposal recommends that the district eliminate “noncontiguous zones” — areas of town where kids are transported to schools outside of their immediate vicinity, as far as a 30-minute bus ride away in the case of some Metro Center students attending Bellevue’s Hillwood cluster. These areas would become “choice zones” if the new plan is adopted, meaning that students there could choose whether to attend schools nearby or across town.

Less than 1,000 of MNPS’s more than 70,000 students live in noncontiguous zones, but those areas are generally some of the most economically challenged areas in the district, according to school board member Ed Kindall.

The kids living in these areas under the new plan would have the choice of attending the noncontiguous schools they currently attend or schools in their neighborhoods. Transportation would be provided by the district in accordance with either choice with a minimum level of student participation, according to the task force proposal, though some board members want more details as to how that would be ensured.

The task force’s proposal nearly doubles the geographic area feeding into Pearl-Cohn High School, which would encompass much of North Nashville, Metro Center and downtown. Most schools in the revised Pearl-Cohn cluster, if established, would have student populations consisting of at least 80 percent of students receiving Free and Reduced Meals.

Task force members came to a consensus that, if these changes are to be made, “prerequisites” in the form of additional resources for all schools in the cluster must be put in place. These resources include incentive pay for teachers and staff, which could only be established through negotiations between MNPS and the teachers’ union; lower ratios of students to teachers and additional guidance counselors; and more access for students to technology as well as social workers and psychologists.

Board member Kindall said after the meeting that he will support the changes only if those resources are guaranteed. Making that guarantee is no small task, he said, as many of the resources specified are quick to suffer in tight budget years. A serious commitment to prolonged provision of those resources would have to be provided by Metro Council and the Mayor’s Office, as well as by MNPS, for Kindall to be satisfied that the resources would be in place in the long run, he said.

“We’ve got to have that commitment, and it’s got to be a real commitment,” Kindall said.

The proposal recommends a large number of changes to other clusters as well. View the maps in The City Paper’s slideshow below for more details, or visit www.mnps.org to view street-by-street changes.

Some board members worried about community input

With so many of the proposal’s changes affecting economically depressed neighborhoods, some board members — including Kindall, Gracie Porter and George Thompson — expressed concerns that a single public hearing in East Nashville won’t be sufficient to fully gauge the feelings of the community.

Residents of many of the neighborhoods in noncontiguous zones may have a tough time traveling to the public hearing, they said. And the district’s reliance on the Internet and local media to communicate many details of the plan is not an effective way to inform residents of those neighborhoods.

The task force structure, which the board approved in a divided vote over the winter, includes a single public hearing before the plan is proposed to the board for consideration. The board could, however, decide to host its own meetings separate from the task force’s hearing.

North, in response to these concerns, told the board that the task force is not only made up of residents of all districts included in the plan, but that data gathered from many rezoning public hearings held last year was reviewed in creating the proposals.

“I think that this task force has done its job,” North said.

Board chair Warden advocated for expediency. The current board has spent more time than any other, she said, considering student assignment. Elections will take place in August, after which both Warden and Thompson will be stepping down — and Kindall, North, and Porter are all up for re-election, though Porter is running unopposed.

“No plan will make every community, every parent, every child happy,” Warden said. “We’ve spent years studying this. There’s never a good time. … I hope that we do not abdicate our responsibility by saying that we need to wait yet again.”

A public hearing is slated for 6 p.m. June 3, at East Literature Magnet High, to provide an opportunity for community input. Then the task force is expected to revise its proposal before presenting it to the school board for approval June 24. No changes proposed would take effect before the 2009-2010 school year.

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