At the start of this school year there was a "rumor" going around that Jessi's school would be moving to the new K-8 school built across town in a new housing developement.
This caused parental uproar and concern and crowds attending school board meetings and meetings being held on our school site for question answering and rumor denial.
Well, last night at the school board meeting it was voted that our school would be moving to the other side of town! The school district was in contract with Lewis Homes about having a state of the art new K-8 school built for them in lew of paying the city the fees that normally get paid for building new houses. Problem is the housing market took a dive as did the economy causing the building of houses to cease in the new developement and therefore resulting in low potential school attendence by the neighborhood children. This in turn restricted the school district from opening the new school as contracted and resulted in threats of suit. As a solution, the school district administrators wracked their brains trying to resolve this before legal action ensued and thus resulting in said "rumors" of moving to be true.
It's a state of the art school with capacity to hold 1200 and really is nice from the outside, although a little community buliding-ish. I've heard from teachers and parents alike who have toured the inside and said it's amazing. I've always compared Ashlee's schools to Jessi's and by far Ashlee's schools have been better. Different school districts mind you, but still better.
So the thought of Jessi finally being in a school that has everything.....gymnasium, cafeteria, bigger nurses office, and clean.... is actually exciting. The downfall is it's on the other side of town from where we live, not at the end of the block like it is now. It's a clocked 10 miles. And we could possibly lose our Nurse to the Nurse lady who lives by the school and has more senority. Our Health Tech would stay the same (yea!) but that would mean getting to know ANOTHER Nurse whom I'll have to trust with Jessi's life. Not happy about that. I like Mary and really trust her. If anything ever happened, I'm right here. Now if anything ever happens, I'll be driving like a mad woman across town probably with squad cars in tow! I'm SO not thrilled about being so far away. Not to mention I'll be making that 10 mile drive 5 times a day....drop off, go home, medicine at lunch, go home, pick up after school. Hello milage!
I could put her in the K-6 school down the way a bit, but the point of a K-8 school for her was in relation to her medical need and being at one school until high school and not having to worry about Nursing staff and trusting many different people as opposed to a limited few. I never thought the school would move, so we were set. (so I thought)
On top of that, do I really want to still be involved with the PFA (PTA) and have to travel back and forth a farther distance? I'd have to plan days where I'd be around the whole time........yippie!
I'm sad as well because some of Jessi's friends are already leaving school and going to other schools because the drive is not worth it for them. That will probably continue to happen and who knows which friends will go to the new school and which friends won't? School friends are being split up and parent friends as well. Some people are so mad because they purposefully moved closer to the current school and now that's pointless.
I don't think the school district/board thought this out too well. I feel there are other ways around this and I'm disappointed that these people who were elected to help our schools and children are doing more harm than good. They're not being fiscally responsible with certain choices and this has been a problem with the district in the past with the building and opening of other schools......although this is the FIRST time they're moving one school to fulfill a contract. So what happens to the empty school that will sit down the street from me? "Rumor" has it an adult school will go there. The district denies that.......they also denied moving.
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