I completely agree, emotional responses many times are not based on fact, but of the ones I heard about at South the other night and Albemarle the week before. they were actually based on fact I believe. You had a teacher who gave the kids an assignment on how to improve their school, and I do not remember the exact percentage, but I believe she said over 75% (unsolicited) of them said they did not want their school to close. Now that part is probably based more on them hearing their parents and fear but you had an EC teacher, who said those kids would have a very difficult time adjusting. You had a parent of an EC student, saying it would be very hard for kid to adjust - This is fact that the school board has to assume, unless they have taught or are specialized in helping EC kids - The parents and teachers of EC kids are going to know them best obviously. You had a parent with a kid that has anxiety about school speak about how difficult it would be for him to have to change. You had a teacher, who had a student, whose parents do not have a car, who said she was going to walk to the meeting if her parents would let her - She was not there. You had a teacher who rides the bus with the kids, talking about some of the living conditions and lack of transportation for many. I believe transportation and the lack there of was the main theme at the Albemarle meeting. Many teachers will tell you parent involvement is way down from where it used to be. I would assume moving kids out of the community will do nothing to help with the parent involvement situation. You had a police chief say their response for police, fire and medical response to Norwood were all less than 1 minute, which I would assume has to be the best of any school in the county - Obviously one issue with Norwood brought up by the board has been safety. He was concerned that if his children were moved, another school could not offer those types of response times. Again that was a fact based, yet emotional response.
All of these speakers were very emotional - But there were facts about the hardships these kids/families would face in those speeches. I did not hear about any parents getting up and saying little Johnnie or Susie do not want to change schools because they might not be in same school with their best friend or Great Grandpa, Grandpa, Father and kid have all went to this school, so you cant make us move now.
I do agree however in what you said about the Board having to separate feeling from fact or no school would ever close.
All of these speakers were very emotional - But there were facts about the hardships these kids/families would face in those speeches. I did not hear about any parents getting up and saying little Johnnie or Susie do not want to change schools because they might not be in same school with their best friend or Great Grandpa, Grandpa, Father and kid have all went to this school, so you cant make us move now.
I do agree however in what you said about the Board having to separate feeling from fact or no school would ever close.