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What is meant by this? Is this a regular service? Monthly? Annually? Some sort of spray? Do these guys also spray the grounds like lawns and yards to keep unwanted bugs away? Can a DIYer use a pump sprayer every couple of weeks instead?
You need a termite bond. Basically, a termite bond is monitoring, treatment and insurance all in one.
I'm on the Sentricon system with Cooks. Sentricon has these green units which hold bait (really just sticks of pine) that are placed in a perimeter around your house. Every 3 months, my guy comes out and checks the bait for termites and replaces it. If they find termites, they locate the termites, treat and repair damage as needed. If you have termite damage and they didn't stop it, it's their responsibility to fix it. Once a year, they do a whole house inspection.
Cost is based on the linear feet of the exterior of the home, and it's not high. My house is 2150 square feet and I pay $87 per quarter, which includes everything termite related.
Other kinds of pest services are also available, but not really needed unless you have a problem. There are numerous products on the market like Home Defender which do basically the same thing as a pest "service": repel and kill insects entering the home. They are easy to use and a cheaper than a pro.
Once you have an infestation of something, though, it's generally easier and cheaper to have a pro handle it. There are so many different chemicals and poisons you'll spend a fortune trying to figure out which of 20 different formulas kills your particular pest ant species. If they don't fix it the first time, they'll come out and do it again at no charge.
Hmmmm, lets see if I can expand on/give my interpretation of what Reactionary said. I have lived off of Weatherly in the SE, Monte Sano in the East outskirts, and most recently in the NW off of Jordan (by Chuck-E-Cheese for the locals), so I'll see if I can give some more detail on the general neighborhood situation.
In a very, very general sense West = bad, East = Good... North = Bad, South = Good. And for the most part adding the two regions together would get what you think, IE North + West = double BAD, North + East = Okay, and etc. Also the more you travel towards the fringes in these regions the more they tend to mellow out to "okay".
Now from some street specifics.
1. North of University is bad, not as bad when you get more north of University on Memorial Parkway and towards the east; however, north of University and west is pretty much all bad until you get around the Best Buy shopping area, then things magically take a much nicer turn until you reach the upper-class area of Providence. The closer you get on University to Memorial Parkway, the worse it becomes on the south side as you leave the proximity of the Univeristy. (Remember this is all on the west side of Memorial Parkway, east of it most everything is better).
2. West of Memorial Parkway is bad. The further west you travel on University the better the south side of it becomes (mostly because this is where the University resides). Pretty much from University to Drake (West Governors, Bob Wallace), enclosed by Jordan/Patton and Memorial Parkway, is not desirable on the west side. All you have to do is travel 1 mile east from the parkway on the same road though and you would find some nice charming neighborhoods (five points, piedmont, around Huntsville High). East of Pulaski Pike, west of Memorial Parkway there is a particularly bad stretch that reaches farther south and even a little east towards holmes and downtown.
For living in NW Huntsville, I have been pretty sheltered from most of what is further towards the north and west. I really don't know about the neighborhoods up around Maston Lake, Jordan, and Pulaski Pike north.
On to the high school situation in those areas:
1. NE/N goes to Lee; a school with a probably the most well rounded ethnic mix, but has recently hit some hard times with a crazy principle and a tentative building situation. I do believe it is considered a magnet school of arts and mathematics, but is still not on anyone's top school choices.
2. NNW/N goes to Johnson, by far the most predominantly black school. Don't really know too much about it except that at our football games there was a total of 2 white people on the other side and they were wearing South Pole...
3. NW/W goes to Butler, with a mix of 65% black, 28% white, 6% Latin, and 1% other. I know this because I attend there for part of my high school career. It was a decent school while I attend, but lacked many stand out teachers and had an overall rough attitude. Lately it has fallen on increasingly harder times, with most teachers going to Providence or Huntsville High as well as a sharp decline in attendance. Now even the school's future existence is brought into question every year.
4. W/SW/other Providence and New Century are the other two schools that round out the school situation in the North and West of Huntsville. I think New Century might have been consolidated in either Providence or Butler but I'm not too sure. Providence is a nearly new high school with a very interesting mix of students as they pulled from nearly every school in the West of Huntsville including New Century (a tech high school), as well as some kids from the upper-class Providence development. I left Huntsville shortly after its creation though, so I don’t know too much about how it has fared.
The worst thing that you can say about most of the other schools in and around Huntsville is that they are over crowded. Grissom, Bob Jones, Hazel Green, and Huntsville high are all experiencing growing pains as a result of newcomers trying to avoid the above-mentioned schools. Huntsville High in particular had an opportunity to help alleviate this issue when they built their new school, but that has come to be known as one of the worst architectural disasters in Huntsville as it could not adequately support its current known school size, let alone help the other over-crowed schools.
It would take forever to go over each individual middle and elementary school, but they essentially make up the high schools that they filter into with some being better and worse than the high school average.
As for crime, all the originally mentioned areas aren’t particularly good, but I would have to say the region from Jordan to Memorial Parkway along University and Governors, as well as little into downtown Holmes is the worst area for crime that I'd come in contact with. However, like I said, I have never dealt with the more extreme north and west areas of the city, so they might be worse crime wise.
Sorry for all the confusing "north by northwests" and so forth. Hopefully with a map you will be able to kind of see what I was talking about. If you have any more questions about a particular region, I would be more than happy to try and answer them.
I understand this post a lot better now that I've been around the area. To be honest, I never saw anything that made me nervous, but I may not have driving in the bad places. I did notice a some construction on Memorial Parkway (231) and Weatherly and also 431 east from 231.
Does anyone ever talk about lifting the desegregation order? Is this a dream? Is it something people aren't comfortable talking (writing) about? Is it political suicide? If it were lifted what would be the biggest changes positive and negative (which I suppose would depend on who you ask and how they are affected)? Would it help balance the schools as some have like 40% capacity and some have like 110% capacity? What would be the mechanics of the transition?
I understand this post a lot better now that I've been around the area. To be honest, I never saw anything that made me nervous, but I may not have driving in the bad places. I did notice a some construction on Memorial Parkway (231) and Weatherly and also 431 east from 231.
Does anyone ever talk about lifting the desegregation order? Is this a dream? Is it something people aren't comfortable talking (writing) about? Is it political suicide? If it were lifted what would be the biggest changes positive and negative (which I suppose would depend on who you ask and how they are affected)? Would it help balance the schools as some have like 40% capacity and some have like 110% capacity? What would be the mechanics of the transition?
I believe that any sort of government "order" designed to help society change its culture, no matter how morally admirable, will always be fought up a steep, steep hill. If it were lifted, it would be simple from giving up, not from a mission accomplished. Like I wrote in my previous post, Lee and Butler are the two high schools in Huntsville with the best racial mix; as I just learned from another topic, they also happen to have about the worst capacity percentage.
While there could be numerous reason taken into account for the low attendance at these school, I feel that it is more than a coincidence that they also ride the middle of the racial divide. And while a lot of people look at a school and say "Oh, no wonder it has low capacity, it is simply not a good school", the truth tends to be the opposite. The lower the attendance, the less people seem to really care.
The exception to this rule would be most prominently Columbia High School, but then again this is the perfect example of the desegregation order at work. They literally pulled samples from most walks of life in Huntsville and poured them into the same high school. From what I hear, the result has been an extremely "cliquish" atmosphere. I am curious to see how many years the school remains at either full capacity or maintains a rich ethnic mix. (I would bet that the racial mix will slowly dwindle as the Providence development is not going to up and move.)
This condition is not only limited to the Butler and Lee school zones. My brother attends East Clinton ES in the Huntsville High school district. It is located in a nice part of downtown by a charming neighborhood, but alas its racial mix is nearly 50-50. As of last year, the school closing has been all the gossip as capacity is down around 30%.
While I don't particularly agree with any desegregation orders, and the one we currently have is certainly not working very well; I do think it is a fairly sad state we are in when the schools with the best ethnic diversity are the ones we avoid the most. Once the attendance lowers enough, the caring lowers enough, and therefore the quality of education lowers enough; it gives us a more legitimate reason to avoid such schools... "Oh, well that just isn't a good school."
knightofeffect - I quibble with your notion that a racial mix of 50-50 (or the mix at Butler or Lee) is the best ethnic diversity. IMO the goal should be to reflect the population: HSV is 30% black, so a school with 30% black students reflects the diversity of the area.
A 50/50 mix overrepresents blacks (note that East Clinton SAT schools are very low - 3rd grade reading = 24, 3rd grade math = 38). It's not a good school, especially compared to Lincoln (reading = 40, math = 65) right up the street - which has poorer students.
IMO the goal should be to reflect the population: HSV is 30% black, so a school with 30% black students reflects the diversity of the area.
Does this mean that every school should, regardless of its location in Huntsville, reflect those proportions? Including elementary schools? If the schools don't reflect those proportions, how would these proportions be achieved?
I, for one, am completely against the gerrymandering that has gone on with our school districts. We should have neighborhood schools. It increases the identity that families feel with the school and community in any given area. Of all the local areas, it seems that Madison has done the best job in this area. The school zones for Huntsville are a mess and the deseg order is readily apparent in the way that they were drawn. IMHO, Providence Elementary and Middle are the poster child for screwing up school zones.
Charles, I'm just challenging the notion that 50/50 is 'racial balance', because it is not, based on the ratio of blacks in the population.
I know that it is fantasy, but yes, IMO every school should try to have a representative population - but I'm also a proponent of neighborhood schools. I definitely agree that HSV school zones are a mess (IMO partly due to the deseg order).
I think that the City should consolidate / close some schools, build some new ones, and somehow get grades up in the bad schools. Discipline is important.
A friend of mine told me he toured one of the lower-scoring middle schools recently, and he saw kids sleeping at their desks - he was told that the teachers didn't wake them up because when these kids were awake they'd disturb the class and make it tougher on the kids who wanted to learn.
The desegregation order does need to be lifted. I wasn't here when it was in place, or alive for that matter, but I am sure they needed it then. But now they don't. It is bad that schools sit half empty all over Huntsville and parents take their kids past neighborhood schools to take them to a school that is overcrowded. It doesn't make any sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Reactionary
The city is may be planning to try to get out from under a federal desegregation order, which will allow the school board / city more control over schools / zoning.
Search on Huntsville Times reporter Challen Stephens, who does a creditable job of writing about local school issues, including:
(Note: A lot of al.com URLs are empty including the one above.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles
Does anyone ever talk about lifting the desegregation order? Is this a dream? Is it something people aren't comfortable talking (writing) about? Is it political suicide? If it were lifted what would be the biggest changes positive and negative (which I suppose would depend on who you ask and how they are affected)? Would it help balance the schools as some have like 40% capacity and some have like 110% capacity? What would be the mechanics of the transition?
I understand how people would like to express opinions on this subject, and those opinions are interesting, legitimate, and informative. However, I'd still like a little more situational information, a little history perhaps, an educated guess of the future. (I wish those al.com URLs worked...)
So everyone, does it look like the situation will remain the same?
I ask because I haven't paid a lot of attention to this situation over the years (understandably) and I was hoping those of you who are in tune with the politics and government might be able to provide a feel. I did and am trying a little internet research as one should do before they inquire on a City Data forum.
Even something like "It will never change", or "This issue is really getting a lot of attention, it's up for review..." or "Expect huge changes in the next year" would be valuable information for me.
As an outsider, I just don't have a feel. For example, I could give a feel on some political & social situations in Colorado and California simply because I have lived in these parts for over 40 years.
I know that the deseg order has been discussed pretty extensively over the last couple of years. The biggest issue (as I understand it) is that the legal fight to get it removed will be expensive and Huntsville hasn't decided that it is worth the money.
A dual school system is re-emerging in Huntsville, marked by race, separated by geography and sorted by income.
For the first time, blacks account for 43 percent of the students in Huntsville. That's an increase of four percentage points in five years. But what sounds like a high-water mark for integration is just the opposite.
Despite rising numbers, black students here increasingly attend school among themselves. In 1997, Huntsville had five schools where more than 90 percent of the students were black. There are 10 such schools now...
The idea is that when a school crosses the 50 percent threshold - the tipping point - white students won't return.
...because Huntsville schools remain under a 33-year-old desegregation order, federal authorities still approve where Huntsville can build new schools, where zone lines go, who can transfer to which school.
Three members of the school board say Huntsville has acted in good faith and no longer needs federal oversight.
But the board must persuade one of its own.
"Everywhere I look, it's discrimination in some form, some way," said Dr. James Dawson, the only black member of the board. "We will never get out from under this court order. I will personally fight it."...
To retire that order, Huntsville must enter a lengthy legal process - imagine a comprehensive building analysis, consideration of test scores and course offerings, shuffling of teachers, numerous community meetings.
"You want to see legal bills?" asked school board attorney J.R. Brooks, a long-standing expert on the local court order. He said he could not provide a dollar estimate...
Five years ago, Dr. Phil Elder, who was the curriculum coordinator, helped compile the paperwork for Lee County Schools.
"I'm not exaggerating," Elder said. "It was an entire van full of material that dated back 10 years."
In Lee County, which borders Georgia, educators hosted town meetings, wrangled in federal court, explored every facet of the system from cheerleading squads to upper-level math. In some cases, administrators found cases of "unconscious discrimination," such as few minorities in calculus, Elder said.
"Then it wouldn't suffice to send a reply to the federal government that the minority students weren't interested in this program," Elder said. Instead, administrators must sift data for root causes and come up with ways to balance the program, such as recruiting more black eighth-graders for algebra...
Once declared unitary, a system no longer needs to consult the Justice Department on every building and project.
However, no legal protection is gained, said Huntsville school board member Doug Martinson Jr., who is a lawyer. Parents can still sue. Teachers can make charges of discrimination. In fact, the court order can help a system defend itself when race becomes an issue.
Here's what the Huntsville school board says:
"I think most people are pretty happy with their neighborhood schools. I think people at Lee and at Johnson are happy. It's not like the old days when it was separate but clearly unequal. I don't think we have unequal." - Doug Martinson Jr.
"We've come a long way. We're not where we should be." - Topper Birney
"You can't have separate but equal schools. They are separate, but not equal." - Dr. James Dawson
"It's gathering by choice." - Jennie Robinson
"All we can really do is provide the equal opportunities. But we do understand that there are kids who need extra help." - David Blair
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