Reply to Baltimore Sun article about Howard County rezoning

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I live in Howard County, but agree with the PP.  You just don't know.  When the Howard County redistricting process was initiated in January, the stated objective was to balance capacity - move students to schools with capacity to address over-crowding.  To anyone in the know, they would realize that many of the schools with capacity were schools with higher FARMs concentration, but the equity angle was not emphasized at that time. Next, the staff released its Feasbility Study, which contained several proposals for adjusting boundaries.  These did not significantly alter FARMs concentrations, in part because of geographic issues (i.e. thte lower income schools are close together which could lead to shifting students receiving FARMs from one high-FARMs school to another).

Then, when the Superintendent presented his plan in August, the theme was boundary adjustments "through an equity lens."  Equity became a driver for a plan that goes beyond minor adjustments, caling for what people are calling "swaps" of populations - chunks in of students receiving FARMs in and chunks out of higher SES out of less diverse schools to promote "equity."

Bottom line - it is important to stay informed. T[b]he River Hill outcry demonstrates how blindsided the community was by this plan[/b], even though if you paid careful and close attention, the writing was on the wall. This is a hot topic nationally, and the "increase diversity" forces seem to be gaining momentum.[/quote]

If there's lots of public discussion about something, but you didn't pay attention to it because you figured it wouldn't apply to you, that's not being blindsided.[/quote]

You are correct - community didn't pay attention because they didn't think it would impact them. [/quote]

Yes. I live in HoCo and there was much discussion of redistricting but it was mainly in the eastern part of the county. I was aware bc my neighborhood in the southeastern part of the county is always in redistrciting discussions,[/quote]

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