Schools ready to take first steps in rezoning

What’s in a letter? A lot, when the letter concerns rezoning of Metro students.

It isn’t every day that a letter from Nashville’s public school district garners city-wide interest. But early next week, letters detailing a recently passed rezoning plan are slated to be mailed to Metro families, and the communications will be closely watched by school board and community members.

The mailing of the letter marks one of the first steps in implementing the rezoning plan. Rezoning opponents are watching very closely, keeping eyes open for any signs of broken promises related to additional resources for schools and clear communication with families. And rezoning supporters — many of whom have said the plan will only be as effective as its implementation — are also remaining involved.

Mark North, the school board member who chaired a community task force that created the rezoning plan, said Thursday that the beginning of plan implementation is significant, and that plan proponents and opponents alike are unified in their desire to see implementation succeed.

“Everybody wants this to go well, no matter what the plan is,” North said

Plan implementation is also significant from a legal perspective. If there is legal activity related to the plan, it would likely follow plan implementation, at least according to representatives of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Marilyn Robinson, local NAACP president, has said that the local NAACP as well as the national NAACP Legal Defense Fund may engage Nashville’s public school district in a lawsuit related to rezoning, but that such a step would not be taken until plan implementation has been monitored.

The NAACP may also opt to take the U.S. Department of Justice up on its offer to mediate between the NAACP and the public school district. Robinson said she and NAACP attorneys met with a DOJ official last week to discuss the possibility of mediation.

And North confirmed Thursday that he had been contacted by a representative of the DOJ’s community relations service, and then met with the DOJ official to answer questions about the process of the rezoning task force and the Board of Education.

The potential mediation currently on the table would not be a legal matter. The DOJ’s community relations service, according to information from the DOJ, works as a peace-making agent when there are community tensions related to race and national origin.

School officials have kept mum on the matter, and a spokesperson for the district said Wednesday that she wasn’t aware of possible DOJ involvement. But a variety of sources close to the situation have confirmed that preliminary talks have taken place, and that communication is continuing.

In the meantime, the district’s rezoning-related communication plan is being watched closely.

The original plan had been for district-written letters, tailored to individual schools, to be mailed today. That plan was amended, following interest from some board members in participating in the letter-editing process. Earlier this week, board member Ed Kindall expressed concerns that an early letter draft he had viewed was not clear.

On Thursday, Kindall said he was happy with later versions of the letter that he has seen. There’s “no question,” he said, that he considers close monitoring of rezoning communication to be of importance to board members.

“My biggest concern is that parents truly understand what their options are, and what’s involved in that,” Kindall said. “I think that this is important not from an administrative standpoint, but from a board policy point of view. … Our policy is that we want choice.”

The policy of the Board of Education is not, typically, to examine letters written by the administration prior to mailing. Some watchers of public education may consider school board perusal of rezoning letters as bordering on micromanagement.

Recently elected school board Chair David Fox — a strong proponent of strictly defining the role of the board — said that the board’s heavy involvement in rezoning decisions, as well as the administration’s openness to outside opinion, merits an exception to typical policies.

“I think we can make an exception here without getting on some slippery slope. … I don’t think this is setting the stage for any trend toward micromanagement,” Fox said Thursday. “I think we need to be careful in making sure that it’s understood that this is a special circumstance. Ultimately, the administration will decide what the phrasing is.”

Fox added that he believes all board members will be “vigilant” on the topic of rezoning, and communication of the plan to constituents.

Board member Gracie Porter is one board member who, like Kindall, is opting to view the rezoning letters before they are mailed. Editing communications from Metro Nashville Public Schools is “not a common practice,” she said, but this situation is “unique.”

“[This] doesn’t mean that we don’t trust the administration,” Porter said. “From my point of view, the letters are fine.”

The rezoning plan, passed this summer in a divided board vote that continues to provoke local controversy, won’t take effect until the 2009-2010 school year. The most contested portion of the plan recommends that students no longer be bused from low-income MetroCenter neighborhoods to Bellevue’s more affluent Hillwood cluster. Students in those neighborhoods are considered residents of “choice zones,” and can choose whether to attend school close to home or at Hillwood schools.

Supporters say the change brings Nashville closer to neighborhood schools, and improves opportunities for parent and community engagement. Opponents call the plan re-segregation, noting the decrease in percentages of African-American and economically disadvantaged students at Hillwood schools, as well as the slight increases in these populations at some Pearl-Cohn cluster schools.