Letter: Safety at stake

To the editor:

Tuesday’s editorial regarding the proposed school boundary changes was pathetically limp, and downplayed the legitimate concerns of many parents.

It is troubling that the Boundary Advisory Committee initially adopted, without additional review, the recommendations of a firm that has no understanding of the geographical or socioeconomic landscape of this city. By the committee’s own admission at the Nov. 24 meeting, the recommendations were made strictly based on numbers. The committee has no excuse for blindly adopting those plans without considering student safety.

The safety of students has been mentioned many times as a top priority of the committee. Yet at the meeting, it was clear that the committee had not considered the significant safety issues presented by the original Deerfield recommendation. Despite two car accidents taking place in the affected portion of Sixth Street hours before the meeting, none of the district officials present had real plans for ensuring the safety of the affected students under the original recommendation.

Boundary changes are stressful for all affected students and, unfortunately, changes are now unavoidable without building new schools. Any plan adopted by the district must minimize the safety risks to students to the greatest extent possible. I think all parents understand that tackling school boundary changes isn’t an “easy task.” Easy or not, these are the tasks that the board and committee members chose to take on when they sought election or volunteered for these positions. Difficulty does not excuse doing a poor job, especially when student safety is at stake.