Why does FMSD only listen to gold hill rd side of town? (Fort Mill: neighborhoods, school district)

[sixinthefamily]

The FMSD is opening a 4th middle school . They paid a firm to come up with three plans on how to redistrict for it. After these three plans were released it apperas there were complaints. Now on it's own the district has issued a new plan called 3.1 when in reality it is a 4th plan , this plan was released on Friday at 4pm and is to be reccomended tonight. It is now calling for a move of my neighborhood to the new school. While the thought of a new school is exciting in some way there are major concerns with how the board has handled it and how it apperas that this side of town does not ever get a voice in these matters.

Here are the top 5 problems with this plan:

1 . Exhibit A—Spreadsheet outlining the FMSD data for all 4 options. See Attached. We support Option 2 or Option 3. _ can't attach here but basically it creates uneven schools in respect to attendence numbers, make up of students, free lunches etc..

2. The decision to abandon Options 1, 2, & 3 and develop a new option called 3.1 that is clearly an entirely different direction from Option 3 and ignores basic FMSD statistical measurements.

3 The concern for increased traffic on Doby’s Bridge Road with Option 3.1— buses serving 2 different middle schools & 1 high school.

4.Removing a small portion of children that attend FMES and putting them in a middle school with children that they will not remain with for high school.

5.The concern over a family with multi aged children who would attend schools in significantly different geographic locations across Fort Mill (i.e. FMES, #4 Middle, and NFHS) . This would cause increased parental traffic and time constraints to “criss-cross” Fort Mill in an attempt to meet all scheduling needs including drop off, pick up and extra curricular activities of all their children.

[FortMillBound]

I don't think they only listen to the "Gold Hill" side of town. Have you attended one of the board sessions about rezoning? I have. Everyone got to speak and get their opinions to the board members. They listened. They changed the elementary school zoning to a much better solution.

As far as the middle school issue, we live in the "Gold Hill" side of town and will someday be affected by this decision as we move up in grades. The board's original recommendations were crazy for our neighborhood. We were looking at driving 10 miles cross-ways across Fort Mill to the far southeast side of town for middle school. Now the kids in our neighborhood drive straight down Gold Hill road to Springfield. That is the only solution that makes any sense. Why have hundreds of families driving to the remotest middle school (to their neighborhood) every day?

Anyway, we had a large number of vocal activists putting out flyers in the neighhborhood to "get out the vote" - contact your board members now! Did you do that for your perspective? Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease, especially where elected officials are concerned.

Anyway, unfortunately school zoning issues always seem to leave someone unhappy. That being said, the plans originally put forward were illogical for anyone living west of I-77. I'm glad they had sense enough to rethink their position.

Here is the link to the new plan:

http://www.fort-mill.k12.sc.us/www/F...tion%203_1.pdf

[sixinthefamily]

With only 3 day notice for the latest plan 3.1, I think we have done a good job getting the attention of residents effected. I am not sure if it is the case or not but it really feels like the school board tried to slip this by without us noticing. We will be there in force tonight- got our name added to the agenda. We have petitions etc.

I am really curious as to why the three plans the district paid money to get were thrown out and they came up with their own. I am sure, as you said, the squeaky wheel has something to do with. I just don't think the kids on this side of town should always have to pay the price for those wheels. The travel time and traffic are a concern for us as well. I could have one kids at FMES, Two at Middle school 4 and one at NF High. That is a pretty spread out area. Not to worry though I don't want to cross 77 I just want to stay at the middle school we currently go to. One that is on the same road as the Elementary and High School we go to.

Not to mention that my kids would now go to middle school with only about 3 neighborhoods of kids the they went to Elementary school with. The rest of the students will come from Riverview and Orchard Park. Those 3 neighborhoods worth of kids would then have to be pulled from all their classmates once again when it came time for High School since we are zoned Nation ford.

It is frustrating and you are correct not everyone is going to be happy. I think a little notice and fairness would go a long way.

[plotzonit]

Originally Posted by FortMillBound

Anyway, we had a large number of vocal activists putting out flyers in the neighhborhood to "get out the vote" - contact your board members now! Did you do that for your perspective?

I live in one of the neighborhoods that wasn't affected by the first three options - and the neighborhoods that were involved had WEEKS to be "the squeaky wheel". This new "3.1" option gave us (because we ARE affected now) THREE DAYS to digest the information and express our views/concerns (that is the people who actually heard about it) - what time is there for us to really "squeak" about it??? Talk about getting a rug pulled from under your feet! I'd rather drive a non-stop 10 miles than get stuck in the traffic this "3.1" option will cause in our case.

And I'm definitely not crazy about kids getting separated from their friends. I know I'll hear "Oh, they'll make new friends", but then they'll get separated from THOSE friends and go to high school among some pretty tough "cliques". It's hard to go back into a group at that age (high school).

Under the statistics put together under Option "3.1" (http://www.fort-mill.k12.sc.us/www/F...Plan%20Web.pdf) - Fort Mill Middle School will have the highest percentage of Free/Reduced program participants and the LEAST amount of kids. Let's face it, those making less seem to have to work the hardest and can't afford a stay-at-home spouse (or take off from work) to be able to do volunteer work, fund raising, etc. Just the nature of the beast. What would this also mean for extra curricular activities as well such as sports? So if under the new plan I had a child going to Fort Mill Middle School - this would definitely raise a red flag for me! So this affects more than just the neighborhoods who were unaffected to begin with by the first 3 options.

OPTION "3.1" IS A COMPLETE NO-NO.

[sixinthefamily]

Plotzonit

You hit the nail on the head.

[FortMillBound]

Yep, everybody squawked about going to the "poor" school when the elementary schools were being debated too. Same argument, different grade level. There will never be a solution to that concern either as there is obviously a population of economically disadvantaged families in Fort Mill. Geographically that seems to be on the east side of the school district. So they will fall together geographically no matter how you draw the attendance lines.

I do agree with you that they should definitely give as much time for discussing this new option as they did the last. That is only fair.

[bibit612]

Originally Posted by FortMillBound

Yep, everybody squawked about going to the "poor" school when the elementary schools were being debated too. Same argument, different grade level. There will never be a solution to that concern either as there is obviously a population of economically disadvantaged families in Fort Mill. Geographically that seems to be on the east side of the school district. So they will fall together geographically no matter how you draw the attendance lines.

I do agree with you that they should definitely give as much time for discussing this new option as they did the last. That is only fair.

Right on all counts...no solution on re-aligning by socio-economic status, and right that more time should have been given to the new option.

[plotzonit]

Originally Posted by FortMillBound

Yep, everybody squawked about going to the "poor" school when the elementary schools were being debated too. Same argument, different grade level. There will never be a solution to that concern either as there is obviously a population of economically disadvantaged families in Fort Mill. Geographically that seems to be on the east side of the school district. So they will fall together geographically no matter how you draw the attendance lines.

With two middle schools close enough together (such as FMMS and the new 4th middle school) - there is NO excuse for making one school the "poor" school. EVERY child, be they come from a poor family or a very well off family, should get the same advantages at a public school (especially when poor and rich alike are paying taxes). I'm sure the same could be said for the elementary schools, but that's said and done.

[mcdades23]

Originally Posted by sixinthefamily

The FMSD is opening a 4th middle school . They paid a firm to come up with three plans on how to redistrict for it. After these three plans were released it apperas there were complaints. Now on it's own the district has issued a new plan called 3.1 when in reality it is a 4th plan , this plan was released on Friday at 4pm and is to be reccomended tonight. It is now calling for a move of my neighborhood to the new school. While the thought of a new school is exciting in some way there are major concerns with how the board has handled it and how it apperas that this side of town does not ever get a voice in these matters.

Here are the top 5 problems with this plan:

1 . Exhibit A—Spreadsheet outlining the FMSD data for all 4 options. See Attached. We support Option 2 or Option 3. _ can't attach here but basically it creates uneven schools in respect to attendence numbers, make up of students, free lunches etc..

2. The decision to abandon Options 1, 2, & 3 and develop a new option called 3.1 that is clearly an entirely different direction from Option 3 and ignores basic FMSD statistical measurements.

3 The concern for increased traffic on Doby’s Bridge Road with Option 3.1— buses serving 2 different middle schools & 1 high school.

4.Removing a small portion of children that attend FMES and putting them in a middle school with children that they will not remain with for high school.

5.The concern over a family with multi aged children who would attend schools in significantly different geographic locations across Fort Mill (i.e. FMES, #4 Middle, and NFHS) . This would cause increased parental traffic and time constraints to “criss-cross” Fort Mill in an attempt to meet all scheduling needs including drop off, pick up and extra curricular activities of all their children.

#4 as been a big problem for me, it's not just with this new middle school, its the whole area. Where I came from they had what I guess you would consider a feeder school program. Say you have 2 high schools, 4 middle schools and 8 elementary schools. ES 1-2 would feed to MS A and ES 2-4 would feed to MS B and so on. Then all kids in MS's A and B would feed into HS-A and MS's C and D would feed to HS-B. They way all the kids that go to ES together would still be together in MS and HS. My daughter is currently attending Pleasant Knoll. If things stay the way they are she will then attend Springfeild Middle. Then half the kids at Springfeild Middle would go to Nation Ford and the other half feed to Fort Mill. Doesn't make any sense to me.

[sixinthefamily]

Originally Posted by mcdades23

#4 as been a big problem for me, it's not just with this new middle school, its the whole area. Where I came from they had what I guess you would consider a feeder school program. Say you have 2 high schools, 4 middle schools and 8 elementary schools. ES 1-2 would feed to MS A and ES 2-4 would feed to MS B and so on. Then all kids in MS's A and B would feed into HS-A and MS's C and D would feed to HS-B. They way all the kids that go to ES together would still be together in MS and HS. My daughter is currently attending Pleasant Knoll. If things stay the way they are she will then attend Springfeild Middle. Then half the kids at Springfeild Middle would go to Nation Ford and the other half feed to Fort Mill. Doesn't make any sense to me.

With this current plan I found out that just 88 kids would be taken away from their friends for middle and then returned for highschool. If you add those same 88 kids back into where they currently are the enrollment numbers are actually most closer together then where they are with plan 3.1

I went to the meeting last and while we got a chance to have someone from our neighborhood speak it would have been nice if we all got to speak. I more than anything had questions I wanted to ask. Thankfully the man who came up with the plans allowed a small group of us to ask questions directly to him after the meeting was over. It was really nice to be able to get the info that is not available online. Sadly, the answers to the question just made me even more worried about the proposed plan.

We have a few more weeks before thevote . During that time we plan on really pushing our opinions on the school board.