When did we decide to treat our children like cattle? At what point did the numbers become the most important factor in decisions? I need to rant to someone, and you, my few blog readers, will now fill this personal need of mine.
The boundary for Spanish Fork junior high is the street 1400 East in Spanish Fork. The boundary for Spanish Fork high is 1700 East. Canyon Elementary is directly to the north, East Meadows is just to the east. My address happens to be at 1662 East.
Check this out. My children go to Canyon Elementary. 99 percent of their peers go to SFJHS. But guess what? Due to the infinite "wisdom" of the school district, my kids go to Diamond Fork. That puts them in with a whole new set of friends. Then guess what? When they transition to high school, they get sent back to SFHS! Basically, they lose the majority of their friends from elementary, make new friends for 3 years which they turn around and lose, only to be thrust back to the original friends, who have changed a lot in 3 years.
I've been waging an email battle to at least bring this issue to light. One district official replied that "hopefully most kids have found friends in elementary that follow them to jr. high and then jr. high friends that accompany them to high school". Oh, ok. Well, I'll just tell my friends to only associate with students living south of Canyon road and between 1400 E and 1700 E. My goal of not using profanity is ruined, yet again!
Of course, this is only an issue because SFJHS is at capacity. Of course, the district office posts the enrollment numbers on their web site, and it turns out DFJHS is at capacity as well. So what's the difference? And the district is having issues with keeping enrollment up at SFHS, since they completely blew it with the new boundaries for the openings of Salem Hills and Maple Mountain, which are bursting at the seems since all the growth is within their perimeter, while SFHS was pretty much land locked. And all I get is discouragement and roadblocks. If I want to provide consistency for my children, I need to look outside the district to private schooling or charter schools. Real nice Nebo. All you'd have to do is allow for a choice for those of us living in the DMZ, and you'd have a problem solved. You'd have most Canyon students wanting to follow their peers to SFJHS, then onto SFHS, thus helping bolster enrollment. But instead you come up with the best freaking idea ever, to heard around a handful of students like a bunch of sheep!
I'd run for the school board, but I'm afraid it'd be detrimental to the other board members. If this decision is a sampling of their decision making and planning capacities, we wouldn't last long together.
Thanks reader. I feel a bit better now.
