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students, and to find a solution that will benefit all of our children in Orange County. Thank you. Georgia Gamcsik: The last time I spoke I told you that I had made a choice when my children became school age to move out of Durham to Chapel Hill. I really wasn't aware historically of what had gone on, but it was a little bit eye opening when I looked an the Orange County website and saw the Durham merger documents. I didn't have to go much further than the date because essentially I moved to Durham in 1997, and the Durham schools merged in 92-93. My children needed to begin looking at schools in 1998. What I found was this -the County and City schools were merged to provide equal opportunities to children in the City and County and combine resources for school operating costs. What that said to me was that six years after the merger of Durham schaals something wasn't working. Something went horribly wrong. The school my children were districted far in Durham had a no better than 60°l° pass rate on EOGs in both reading and math. In fact, that school, along with others, was in danger of closing because of a lack of progress in these areas. I'm not sure how long you're willing to wait for schools to show improvement in what they perceive to need to be changed, but five years is way too long. I can also tell you that many aspects of community life were severely disrupted. City residents resented sending their children to unfamiliar neighborhoods not in their communities to learn. Why not bring necessary resources to their schools? Why did the children have to go and be caught in a major reshuffling? Not only that, but where is the accountability? Who is assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the past-merger process? Who was there to be accountable to foresee a smooth transition and make modifications where necessary? The beauty of Orange County is whether you live in Chapel Hill ar the County; it's a no-brainer. All of our schaals enjoy well above average statewide achievement. But if the delicate balance of excellent teachers, parental involvement, the hard work of our superintendents and school boards is disrupted, will we be able to maintain the level of success we have now? I hope the Durham schools are thriving. But do we want to embark on a process, which may not deliver its promises, and in the meantime potentially create further divisiveness in our communities? I'm not willing far my child to be placed in a position of spending nearly half of his 12 academic years enduring this kind of uncertainty. Our children deserve a well thought out deliberative process which includes a clear mechanism to fix things when they go wrong and a reasonable effort to anticipate needs that a merged system would call for. Alice Anderson: My name is Alice Anderson. My husband and I live in Carrbora and we have two children. One is a fourth grader at McDougle Elementary and one is a seventh grader at McDougle Middle. I've not been asked to speak by any group; I'm here only representing my husband and myself. I have come tonight to ask you to consider alternatives to merger. My children have always walked to and from school. They walk or bike the 'h mile both ways every single day, five days a week. The only exceptions are when it's really cold, really wet, or when one of them is not feeling 100°~. Walking is a lifestyle choice that we have made for our children. I'm here tonight because it's a walk I want to preserve for my fourth grader when he gets to middle school. I'm also here tonight because my children attend two excellent schools.