Minutes - 20031204 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

I hope you can make decisions for the majority of the people, not against them. Thank you. Sandra Debussy: I have come to speak tonight because I'm concerned that we are moving rapidly towards a course of action without those of us in the general public -the voters, the taxpayers -really understanding fully what the actual needs and goals and impacts are of what's under consideration. And by that I mean that it's critically important to start with the end in mind; to know where it is that you're going; what the plan is. We've heard about equitable opportunities for all the kids in the County, one I would certainly support. But it is a very vague goal. What I've heard is how a merger might help with costs. I've heard a lot of discussion around different ways to pay to get adequate funding and equalized funding across the two systems, but not what it's going to da to create equal opportunities and what that means, how we define it, haw we're going to know when we've gotten there. Secondly, as somebody who's gone through two mergers in very large organizations, I can tell you from speaking on the inside, it is not a painless process, it's not a fast process, and it's not necessarily - at least in the short term - an efficient process. You have two large organizations with histories, with processes, with cultures that are different; that have been different and have grown different. It's going to take some time to figure out how to merge those two into something that works effectively. I'm concerned that in the short term, what's the impact for my kid in that system, while the people that are the teachers, the administrators, are worrying about their jobs and what it's going to mean far their jobs, and who's going to run the school, and which processes are going to be used, and what the goals are going to be; who's minding the store and taking care of the kids? I'm concerned about what that's going to look like. And as someone else said earlier, larger is not always better. It is not always more efficient. You probably are not going to eliminate many schools. You're probably not going to eliminate many of the teachers, if any. You probably can't cut the administrative staff in half because you have to have somebody running the system. And all of this tends to suggest to me that the cost savings we're talking about boils down to whether or not we can delay building new schools. And if that's the case, the question in my mind is if the time period in which you could delay building new schools is sufficient to cover all of the other casts and impacts that were suggested. Craig Debussy: You've already heard from the better half, but I'd like to have my two cents worth. Some might look at a merger as a marriage between our two school systems. I believe that it was Mae West who said, "Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet." First, thank you for adding this third public hearing. I think many of us were concerned that merger was a done deal by the time we heard of it and got our first look at it in September. I'd like to comment on some of what I've heard at previous hearings, and I'd like to make same suggestions on how we might proceed. We've heard some heartfelt comments at these hearings, but I'm saddened by some of what I've heard from my neighbors in the County. The descriptions of parents in Chapel Hill and Carrboro as selfish, fearful, and a "we've got ours mentality" do an injustice to the people I know who are active in the City schools. We've heard same stories of struggles by families in the County schools. Those of us in the City schools know that there are too many families who face these same struggles. In my son's first year at Seawell Elementary, the school was over capacity by 200 students, and this was just two years ago. Many of his classmates came from poor neighborhoods, and I believe the black, Hispanic, and Asian minorities actually made up the majority of students that year. His teacher, in her first year at Seawell, struggled with not having enough money for supplies in the class. And despite the challenges we faced, the pride of the families