I just sent my letter to the Pasco School Board. Please send yours too! [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] I am a parent of five children in Pasco school district. We live in one of the neighborhoods that is zoned to McLoughlin for middle school and PHS for high school. These boundaries have been very difficult for our family for many reasons. First the logistics of dropping off and picking up kids at McLoughlin and Pasco both is very difficult. My children are involved in before-school music programs and after-school sports. Because of this bussing is not an option, and I have to drive my kids to and from school every day. When classes start at nearly the same time at PHS and McLoughlin, it is practically impossible to get all my kids where they need to be on time. Additionally some afterschool actives dont begin right after school, but may be delayed for a few hours. So I have the options of picking her up at 2:30, taking her home, and then bringing her back at 4:30 for sports, or simply leaving her at the school to hang out unsupervised for several hours. And because school activities rarely end at the exact same time every day, she is often left standing in the dark outside the school for 20 minutes waiting for me to get across town to pick her up. The second major issue is friends. The majority of McLoughlin students go to Chiawana, so my children who attend PHS are separated from all their friends. During my daughters freshman year at Pasco High, she never had more than two kids in any of her classes that she knew. Not two friends, just two kids that she had at least seen before at McLoughlin. She felt very lonely and isolated. I hear the same thing from students in East Pasco. The small fraction of kids who go to Ochoa, but are then assigned to PHS are completely cut off from the 95% of their friends who are now being bused to CHS. Last year I was employed at Chiawana High School, and was able to transfer my daughter over to attend the school where I worked. She was much happier at CHS. Not only did she have many more friends there, but the class offerings were more rigorous and engaging than the classes she was able to take at PHS. The stress level in our home dropped dramatically just from the one simple change of not having to get her to and from school every day. She was able to spend a few minutes longer before and after school with her siblings on the way to McLoughlin. In the life of a teen, those extra 20 minutes at teh crossroads of the day are priceless. Unfortunately I am no longer working at CHS, so we have had our boundary exemption denied, and she will now have to leave her friends at CHS and go back to Pasco High. Because of the inflexible nature of the boundaries in Pasco, many students suffer from this type of educational disruption. I had students I worked with at CHS who showed up mid semester, or were there one day and gone the next because their family had moved and they were now in the other schools boundaries. Considering the often transient nature of many of our Hispanic families, it seems like very poor policy to not allow students to continue in the school where they are most comfortable. There also seems to be an assumption, that the families in West Pasco can not only bare the financial burden of cross-town zoning, but that having a white neighborhood brought into East Pasco will somehow improve the diversity at PHS. There are two major flaws with this assumption. First, this is in no way a white neighborhood. Every neighborhood in Pasco is predominately Hispanic, so the idea that you could dramatically change the makeup of PHS by bussing in a few hundred kids from this side of town is flawed from the start. Secondly my family, and the majority of my neighbors are not as affluent as was presumed when these boundaries were first designed (before our homes were even built here). My family and many of my neighbors are part of the 73% of Pasco students who qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Not only do we not have the financial means to be a major support to PHS, but our location makes it very impractical for us to routinely participate in booster activates. Sadly, many of the most pro-active families in our neighborhood have chosen to move to Richland and Kennewick where the school districts make it easier for parents to be involved in making decisions that benefit their children. Many people wrongly assume that the hardship is a one way street born solely by West Pasco families. But the truth is these boundaries hurt all of Pasco. While working at Chiawana High School, I saw similar scenarios play out all the time. Many families from east Pasco have students going to school at Ochoa and other far away schools, while their high school students are being bused across town to CHS. It is a burden for them just as its a burden for me to have students at McLoughlin and PHS. Other families move in and around Pasco, and their kids are suddenly in a new schools boundary. The district claims that boundary exemptions can be made for hardships, but the truth is these applications for exemption are systematically denied. I have seen more than a few times where these difficulties have led parents to falsify enrollment papers in order to have their child attend the school they prefer. Its not right. Its not right that the current boundaries make life harder for so many families. And its not right that parents feel like they have to lie in order to get a better education for their children. I wish the school board would consider realigning the high school boundaries, and realistically allow the option of in district transfers to all students.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 22:43:25 +0000