School Board MUST Vote To End Its ILLEGAL Transfer Policy NOW!

[MadGreenHornet]

Sam Anderson is determined to try to save Austin-East. He realizes and understands that now that race can't be used to deny transfers and that Knox County has been using an illegal, unconstitutional transfer policy for years, the failing Austin-East High School is doomed to close.

There is now no way to deny white or black students to transfer out of the A-E zone. They will apply for them in droves, as no one, even those in the blocks surrounding A-E, really wants to go to school there.

The blacks have been trying to go to Fulton and West. The whites have been trying to go to Gibbs and Carter. Now, the school board won't be able to prevent them from doing it, and no matter how large the A-E zone is expanded to by this clueless board, A-E will continue to have students sucked out of it.

The handwriting is on the wall. A-E is a failed school, not just a failing one. It must be closed if the county school system overall has a chance to improve. It has practically ceased to be viable and is in danger of being taken over by the state due to its terrible test scores.

Under the old, illegal, unconstitutional policy that the school board foolishly left in place last nite, blacks could never transfer from Austin-East to Fulton, as they have wanted to do in droves for years. Also, no white student in the A-E district could transfer out of it.

The school board, in its utter stupidity, expanded the A-E zone to include all of Chilhowee Hills and all of Spring Hill, all the way northeast to East Towne (Knoxville Center) Mall, in a failed attempt to force more students into A-E, a failing school that the state is about to take over if it continues to fail.

On top of this, the school board continues to reject charter schools, continues to reject things like Chris Whittle's Edison Project, and all of the private solutions that would be the only way to save A-E from failing.

A-E will continue to lose students. They will transfer to Carter, Gibbs, Fulton, South-Doyle, and West. The parents of both the black and white students there don't want to go there. Despite the school board's stupidity, which only served to devalue both residential and commercial real estate in a wider area and make the Magnolia Avenue blighted area corridor expand to Asheville Highway and Rutledge Pike, A-E's student population will continue to decline, as will its test scores.

A-E continues to be a magnet school. However, the main thing it is a magnet for is drug dealers, prostitution, gang violence, crime, guns, etc. Don't forget there was gunfire at an A-E football game not long ago. The criminal element preys on the school.

A-E will have less and less students, no matter how big its "zone" is expanded to. The parents will do what the school board won't, which is close this failing school for good. That is the only way for them to get a quality education for their children and to end all of the crime that is happening in the neighborhood.

That's how the area around the former Rule High School was revitalized, with the Hope Project getting rid of poor housing, bringing in new businesses that are thriving, like Mechanicville's Food City, as opposed to 5 Points' IGA that failed. Neither Burlington nor 5 Points will ever prosper until A-E is closed.

The school board has given A-E more dollars per student BY FAR than any other high school in the entire system. The physical plant is wonderful. The performing arts curriculum is perhaps the best in the state.

However, STILL NO ONE wants to go there, even including the parents and students that live right in the same neighborhood. They want to go elsewhere, but up until now have been denied that choice by the school board. Many stopped applying for transfers because they knew they would be routinely denied under the old, illegal, unconstitutional policy that the school board failed to change.

The ONLY way to "fix" the A-E neighborhood is to close A-E as a high school, make it the Knox County School's headquarters, hold all school board meetings there, make sure it is safe all around the neighborhood for the public to attend such meetings, bulldoze the project housing at Walter P. Taylor and Austin Homes, the abandoned houses where the crackheads and prostitutes hang out, build Hope Project housing, and get Magnolia Avenue revitalized with nice commercial developments.

That is what happened in the area around Rule High School. Once Rule was closed, the area started to prosper and flourish in terms of residential and commercial development. Only when A-E is closed will that happen to Burlington and 5 Points. No one wants to live and have a business in areas where crime is high. KPD cruisers have to intensely patrol the area nightly to keep things manageable.

The handwriting is on the wall. A-E is a failed school and nothing can keep it from failing even more. The transfers will now have to be approved. There is no place for the school board to hide anymore. They are the last to see what is going on with the dynamics of the community they supposedly represent.

The fact is that A-E will have less and less students as time goes on, no matter what the board tries to do to save it. It ceased to be a viable school or a school with passing grades long ago. It is being propped up by people who are living in the past.Build a shrine to Sam Anderson and his football championships of a generation ago, but release the people of the community from their bondage and free them to send their children wherever they want to go, instead of forcing them to go to a failed school and pouring more of our taxpayer money into a hole that is getting deeper and deeper.

The elimination of school zones is truly the only way to go. Why deny parents the right to choose where they send their children? Of course, if they were given this choice, A-E would have virtually no students.Burlington would be revitalized, since it would no longer be zoned only to A-E. Continuing to expand A-E's "zone" only causes more white flight, increases the size of the blighted areas in terms of both residential and commercial property, and forces more and more students out of public schools into private schools. There are some wonderful private Christian schools that are now in the A-E zone and more and more students will go there instead, unless the decide to go to other public high schools.

One of the problems the school board continues to perpetuate is that if you go out of your zone, you have no bus transportation, so even though buses will run right by your home, if you choose to go to a school out of the A-E zone, you must provide your own transportation.

How is that fair to a student and parent who is simply exercising their right to choose? They are taxpayers, too.

The state only requires that someone be given bus transportation if they live at least 2 miles away from the school, if i recall correctly. I'd say eliminate all buses that run from homes within 2 miles of ANY school and save the taxpayers a LOT of money. Buses should only be funded by taxpayers to bring students from at least 2 miles away from whatever school they are to attend. I walked to and from school over a mile away growing up. Why can't today's students do the same?

[Cathy McCaughan]

That's a lot to digest. I'll just touch on the easy stuff. First, I do not think that the schools are required to provide transportation for anyone. It is a service that is provided to students. Someone else needs to clarify that. Second, the rumor mill currently has Vine combining with AE to make a large magnet school, moving KAEC to Vine and making KAEC a middle school for the Sequoyah area students. Rumors are meaningless though. Third, what is the next step for the school board in the process of making changes to the transfer policy?

[Mom Knox]

You have made many valid comments and I intend on going back and re-reading your entry again. I would like to comment on the bus situation. It would be interesting to know how many stay at home moms/dads put their children on a school bus every morning.

[Debi]

Once again, where is our school board on commenting? We know they read these messages. The silence is again deafening.

I also wouldn't hold my breath for Sam Anderson to do anything worthy. I'm actually amazed he's trying to do anything at all with Austin-East. He didn't do anything to try to help a little African-American child who was abused at the hands of KCS and Spring Hill Elementary a couple of years ago.

[Doug McCaughan]

I think it is extremely commendable that we have school board members who look in on this public bulletin board. I am very tickled when they do participate and comment; however, the school board did not create School Matters. Parents who wanted to make sure that the community has a central spot for sharing information, and never being caught of guard with poor long term decisions such as the rezoning, created School Matters with the support of KnoxNews.

I think rather than calling out the school board to comment, we should use this forum to form a unified opinion on an issue. Use our group mind and collaboration to make sure that we have our facts straight. Then take our desires, complaints, compliments, and suggestions to the school board. We are fortunate if and when they participate here. Still, School Matters should not supplant direct communication with your school board representative. Need answers? Email, call, fax, and snail mail them! And of course, positively encourage their participation in School Matters.

And if the transfer policy is illegal, what voting has to be done? If it is against the law, it simply must change and change immediately!

[Karen Carson]

Doug,
There is nothing illegal about the school board's transfer policy. The board immediately revised the transfer policy in August of 2007 when the Supreme Court decision was made. All policies are posted on the Knox Schools website for review.
Thanks,
Karen

[MadGreenHornet]

What policy is the school board following RIGHT NOW in regards to transfers? Are any being allowed at all? Can white or black students transfer out of Austin-East to Carter, Gibbs, West, Fulton, or South-Doyle? If so, how many such transfers have been granted & how many have been denied this year by Jimmie Thacker? We need & demand hard numbers to prove the point that A-E students are in bondage & they need to be freed. All of these smokescreens about free lunches being a determining factor in granting transfers is just another way of keeping race involved in making transfer decisions.

[Karen Carson]

The policy that we are following is Policy JBCD--Student Transfers. It can be found on the Knox County Schools website: www.knoxschools.org. Click under the heading "parents" and then look down the left side for student transfer policy.

[MadGreenHornet]

The what's wrong with this current policy, Karen? Why is Indya Kincannon trying to come up with all of these convoluted additions to it to protect Austin-East from dying? What is the available capacity of each of the high schools & who determines what that available capacity is? Is that listed somewhere on the website? Under the current policy, if 50 students want to transfer from A-E to Fulton, & Fulton has that much available capacity, can't they do that now? Isn't available capacity the only limitation on granting transfers at this point under the current policy? What's wrong with letting that be the only criterion? I know Carter has available capacity. In fact, they could probably take up to half of A-E's students, couldn't they? What about West & South-Doyle? Is Gibbs at capacity? There is no reason why the 5 high schools surrounding A-E can't absorb the few students that are left at A-E, is there? We would save a TON of money by closing A-E. Isn't A-E's campus perfect to become the new school board & administration headquarters? The AJ building downtown is less than ideal. The schools could use all of the millions from the sale of that building to upgrade the other high schools, couldn't they? Am I making too much sense for you?

[Debi]

My op is they aren't going to allow any demographic that will increase the risk of NCLB not being met again. Like with students with disabilities. They can allow the first 44 to fail and not get penalized for it. But as soon as that 46th student is labeled in an individual school, they then have to account for why that demographic isn't being educated. Same with any other group. As long as a group of black kids are held to one failing school, then it's one thing, but if it starts affecting several schools, then they have to do something to stop it -- we know educating isn't the answer here. That's what all the rezoning was about. It wasn't about growth. If you look at the changes, the white folks at Powell got shuffled to Central while the nonwhites from Central got shuffled to Powell. Same with most of the other groups. It was an attempt to make the schools pass by watering down the "troubled" demographics.

[kara]

They way things stand now if your child is at Carter (like mine) they will not be able to transfer back to Carter because it is on the needs improvement list. Anyone who got rezoned to Austin-East is stuck unless you chose Halls, Powell, Hardin Valley, Farragut or Bearden. So with the current transfer policy how likely is it that your child will be able to transfer looking at the numbers of available slots, not likely.

[Pamela Treacy]

Was anyone else surprised at the low number of available transfers at all the schools?

Does anyone know the background? Do they reallocate resources based on the number of requests? Or is it done in reverse? Each principal is asked, without any new resources, how many more students can you support? So of course, the number would be low.

Any insight would be appreciated?

[Karen Carson]

Pamela,
The Board also expressed dissatisfaction with the number of "stated" open transfer slots available. We asked the superintendent to go back and relook at the numbers and come up with real numbers based on functional capacity/ current occupancy. I would expect those to come to us in the near future.