Gordon
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On the Blog Post A Soccer Mom's Letter to the Summit High School Administration
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On the Blog Post A Soccer Mom's Letter to the Summit High School Administration
Gordon
10:29 am on Wednesday, April 25, 2012
James - not sure if you are referring to me, or to one of the other posters? If it is me then you will see from my posts above, that my only point is that there is already sufficient elementary capacity in the district and that redistricting is the appropriate solution, and that it should happen right now so that in the upcoming school year all schools in Summit will have a music room, art room and computer lab. I am against building an addition to a school, while there is already sufficient "in district" space. As far as computers go, I was the the individual parent who pressed the school board aggressively into adding a computer science program to the Summit High School - we were the only district out of nine neighboring districts without one. The program started this year with 19 students, (despite not being published in the 2011-2012 Program of Studies), they added a new Java class this semester, and will roll out AP Computer Science next school year. The Math supervisor and the newly hired CS teacher have done a great job of rolling out this program. I assume you were referring to one of the other posters and not me; it's just that you post came after mine. I also pointed out above that the tax increase of 3.6% was not due either to The City or BoE, but to a 10%+ Union County increase.
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On the Blog Post A Soccer Mom's Letter to the Summit High School Administration
Gordon
11:58 pm on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
I believe Wilson closed at least 30 years ago and was put to other use by the city in the interim. Kinda hard to fault them for that.
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On the Blog Post A Soccer Mom's Letter to the Summit High School Administration
Gordon
10:00 pm on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
There are 3 "general use" classrooms available at Jefferson. These are above and beyond all the other "special use" rooms.
Franklin will be at a deficit of 3 "general use" classrooms next year. Currently the art room, music room and next year, the computer room have been converted to "general use". So while Franklin looks like it is short 1 room it is really short 3.
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On the Blog Post A Soccer Mom's Letter to the Summit High School Administration
Gordon
9:53 pm on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
ReplyBill - Nothing in life is certain, including buying a house in one elementary zone and finding you self redistricted to another. Life happens, demographics shift, four families on the same street could have triplets. We could spend millions building an addition to Franklin and it could grow even more. All that said, I believe that the data are pretty clear and are at http://www.summit.k12.nj.us/ The presentation could be cleaner, footnotes could be added, it could be more polished but the underlying data look solid. The data are not broken down enough for me to be 100% certain; for that we would need by grade, by school, by street data and even then there are houses on the market, no one knows for certain who will be in them at the end of the summer. None of this justifies huge taxpayer expense.
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On the Blog Post A Soccer Mom's Letter to the Summit High School Administration
Gordon
4:00 pm on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
ReplyMine too. But there is already capacity in the district. There is no need for trailers or construction; just redistricting.
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On the Blog Post A Soccer Mom's Letter to the Summit High School Administration
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On the Blog Post A Soccer Mom's Letter to the Summit High School Administration
Gordon
2:53 pm on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
You have to add down not across. I believe LH does not come to 100% because of rounding. I agree that it could be "footnoted" better.
FYI - this "Census Tract" data is pretty much irrelevant to the matter at hand. It just allows them to tie in to home sales, incomes, ethnicity etc.
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On the Blog Post A Soccer Mom's Letter to the Summit High School Administration
Gordon
10:28 am on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
ReplyFYI - I believe that almost the entire 3.6% tax increase to which you refer is due to a 10%+ county tax increase, so it is a little unfair to blame the BoE or Summit City Council for that one. Perhaps time to secede from Union County?
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On the Blog Post A Soccer Mom's Letter to the Summit High School Administration
Gordon
10:25 am on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Sorry - I assumed you were aware of the detailed Population Study that was presented at the BoE meeting last week. It was the most well attended BoE meeting ever, (mainly Franklin residents). The documents can be found at http://www.summit.k12.nj.us/. The study is fairly comprehensive and shows where space is available in the district and where it is likely to be available over the next five years. It clearly shows that there is sufficient space within the district and where that space is located. It may not be where people want it to be located! While there is not quite enough detail given for me to determine a solution, it is clear that enough data is available, but no one has the nerve to state the clear and obvious solution. Many people at the meeting were questioning the methodology. I am a scientist and the methodology looked very sound to me. Looking at possible solutions I do not believe that most possible solutions actually involve space and distance issues, and some may even prove safer. I don't believe I am being glib, and certainly not obtuse. I think if you look at the hard data, (and put aside property value issues), you will have to stretch hard to disagree with the correct but politically distasteful conclusion.
What was not really addressed in detail is that the High School population is going to grow over the next few years by 25%, which is a huge increase.
Gordon
11:41 am on Wednesday, April 25, 2012
T Durden - Not sure regarding the cafeteria ESL issue. If that is the case, then the calculus clearly changes.