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Vicki Hill: I'm an Orange County school parent. And I'm not gaing to be eloquent. I'm just gaing to be short. I've enjoyed coming to these hearings and I appreciate you having these hearings. I've learned a lot. I'm confused by some things. I'm sitting on the fence, and I support my friends in Orange County, because what they say makes sense to me, it sounds like it's based on well-researched information. I do want to say that a separate district tax for Orange County schools is not likely to impact the funding disparity far reasons that have already been presented. I would like to say that a task force made up of educational specialists is worthwhile as a concept. I am concerned about a proposal that it might involve farmer school board members and graduate students. I would like to say that historically a referendum has passed with voters primarily living in the southern part of the County. And based on those voting patterns for bonds, I don't think that it would be reflective of most of the population in northern Orange. I would just like to urge you to continue to find ways for people to unite so that you can get together as parents, and continue to volunteer in our schools, and enjoy our educational system. I do believe that there are some funding inequities and that the children in Orange County schools would welcome the opportunity to have more choices. Thank you. Melissa Holmberg: I have two children in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools. I also work in a nursing care center here in Hillsborough, so I'm very involved in the entire community. I will begin by saying that I do oppose the merger of the schools at this time. I da agree that the funding disparity in Orange County needs to be addressed, but it has been made clear at the past two public hearings, the INFORM meeting, and in Commissioner Gordan's proposal that there are less drastic ways than merger to address this issue -ways that won't create financial hardship for some Orange County residents, especially senior citizens. Therefore, I would like to focus on the transportation issue. The reason this concerns me is that right now my son attends a school approximately five miles from our home. He's on the bus for 45 minutes. If he's pulled to another school even further away, say ten miles, it's logical to double that time to 90 minutes, an hour and a half an the bus. That is unfair to make children sit an a bus for that amount of time. Why else am I so concerned? Well, the further the busses have to travel, the more hazardous zones such as dangerous intersections, blind curves, construction zones, and railroad crossings they will have to travel through, increasing the potential for accidents. And I will tell you a train hitting a bus is horrible. When I was a child, where I lived, there was a terrible accident where about 12 children were killed. And it's not something we want, so we really want to avoid situations like that. Some might say, "If you are so concerned, just drive your children to school." But there are many low-income families in the area where I live in Chapel Hill that do not have that option. Either they don't have access to reliable transportation, or both parents have to work and cannot transport their children to and from school. I don't believe that it's fair to say it's ok for these children to be on the bus for long rides and have their safety compromised any more than my own. Please consider this and study this issue thoroughly and carefully and make sure that by merging the schools, you wouldn't be compromising the safety of hundreds of children. Another aspect is the condition of the busses. My son is on the third school bus since the beginning of the school year. The first two had mechanical problems and so he's on another one now. Last year his bus broke down several times, causing the children to sit on the bus on the side of the road for a long period of time as the parents went crazy with worry. If the systems are merged, the busses will be traveling further, causing more