Dr. Chris King, superintendent of the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD), is proposing a "dual-enrollment" area for students residing in Louisville, CO, north of S. Boulder Rd. This would allow students to choose between their current "home" middle or high school and particular schools in Lafayette. The main idea is to entice students from this particular region of Louisville to Lafayette schools without the need go through the usual open enrollment process. The specifics of the proposal can be found on the BVSD website as well as the original notification to parents.
The Louisville schools involved are Louisville Middle (LMS) and Monarch High School, and those in Lafayette are Angevine Middle and Centaurus High School. The latter two schools are currently undersubscribed. Roughly 40% of students in their respective attendance areas open-enroll to other schools in the BVSD. Centaurus currently has the International Baccalaureate and Pre-Engineering programs to rather successfully entice students. A pre-Engineering program is being put into place at Angevine inspired by the success seen at Centaurus.
While at first this proposal seems benign, one family posted an article expressing serious concerns with this proposal. Parents have also expressed the following concerns:
- Students can already open enroll into these schools if they choose.
- This proposal is the first step down the slippery slope of permanent redistricting, so that children in the proposed dual enrollment area would have Lafayette schools as "home" instead of those located in Louisville.
- The notifications were sent only to LMS and MHS parents. Coal Creek Elementary families were not notified, nor were residents in general. The timeline below shows very little time for consideration of this issue.
- Fiscal irresponsibility (additional $60-70K/year in busing costs)
- Divisive to the broader community by pitting Lafayette neighbor against Louisville neighbor. For instance, it has been argued that Lafayette already has the requisite student body in the attendance area of its schools. Restrictions on open enrollment for those students would solve this problem.
- Children attending Coal Creek Elementary could be separated from their friends when they reach middle school.
The timeline for considering this proposal is:
October 30, 2007 -- The Daily Camera prints an article regarding the proposal
November 1 or 2 -- Parents receive notification and invitation to meetings
November 7 -- Dr. King presents his proposal to parents at LMS. Less than 40 parents were in attendance.
November 13 -- BVSD will take public comment on the proposal. WE WOULD LIKE AS MANY RESIDENTS AS POSSIBLE TO ATTEND THE MEETING AT 6:30. TO DO SO YOU MUST 'SIGN UP' BY PHONING 303-447-5114 OR GO PRIOR TO 6:30 TO SIGN UP.
November 27 -- New BVSD board members will be sworn in
December 11 -- BVSD expect to take action on this issue
You can take immediate action by contacting BVSD Board and staff members by email or phone. Please post your comments and concerns here as well. Here are a few contacts:
Dr. Chris King (superintendent): 303.447.5114, superintendent@bvsd.org
Patti J. Smith (district E): voice mail 303.245.5816, patti.smith@bvsd.org
Email entire board at: bvs.board@bvsd.org
10 comments:
Here is a link to a destratification report: http://www.bvsd.org/District/Documents/BVSD%20Destratification%20Annual%20Report%20-%20April%202007.pdf
Dear Dr. King,
While I understand that the “Voluntary Destratification Opportunity” (dual enrollment) proposed for North Louisville is part of a larger recommendation for destratifying BVSD, I strongly feel this particular effort is not viable. Demographically, there are relatively few eligible students in the designated area. For the majority of students in this area, transportation to Angevine is NOT the REAL issue! Open enrollment is ALREADY easily available to all Louisville residents. This option does little to offer an incentive to bus our children to Lafayette. Hoping to offset even a portion of the flood of Lafayette middle schoolers to Louisville and Boulder with this plan is unrealistic. Neither is this plan fiscally responsible. IT has no target number. Angevine is working on improvements, and only with time, patience and increased resources (instead of spending $60K annually on additional busing for example) will Lafayette begin to support its own neighborhood schools. BVSD should not attempt to break up the Louisville community, Coal Creek community or neighborhoods under the guise of “a destratification opportunity”.
This plan, although voluntary at this point, comes with NO guarantee. When/if this “voluntary” program fails, does BVSD permanently redistrict North Louisville to Lafayette schools? At some point North Lousiville’s neighborhood schools could be in Lafayette. This would mean my elementary student at Coal Creek, could be separated from all his friends and community, and bused RIGHT PAST LSV MIDDLE SCHOOL, out of my home town, to a lower performing school in Lafayette. I moved to Louisville, from Lafayette, 9 years ago because I believe strongly in supporting my community, which included neighborhood schools! I do not want at any time to open enroll out of Lousiville. As you know, over 50% of Lafayette middle schoolers open enroll. The North Louisville neighborhoods SHOULD NOT BE ASKED to participate in this flawed proposal. Lafayette residents should be encouraged to support their local schools by focusing efforts on Angevine, NOT BY BUSING Louisville students to Lafayette.
Furthermore, this proposal needs more public input. Adequate notification WAS NOT given. Families at Coal Creek were NOT informed! The majority of residents in our neighborhoods were NOT informed as they do not have students in BVSD. Only SOME some families of middle and high school students were notified. Notifications were sent out with little time to prepare. With consideration to possible changes, including redistricting and property values, ALL FAMILIES in the designated dual enrollment should have been notified. Why they were not is inexcusable!
I want to see this proposal tabled until adequate notification of residents has occurred, with adequate time for comments and suggestions to be received by BVSD. This “voluntary destratification opportunity” is being sold as “greater parent choice” when in reality it will do MORE HARM TO OUR LOUISIVLLE COMMUNITIES THAN IT WILL TO ALLEVATE STRATIFICATION! As Mayor Chuck Sisk noted: On the face of it, it appears fairly benign, but it pits neighbors against neighbors with schools vying for our children to attend one school or another. Ample consideration of the possible ramifications of this proposal need to be discussed!
I would much appreciate a response from you and other school board members prior to the Tuesday evening meeting.
Thank you for your time,
Rita Vali – North Louisville resident
We would like to voice our opinion on the Dual Enrollment proposal. We were unable to attend the meetings at LMS due to the short notice and the fact that it was scheduled on the same evening and at the same time as the BVSD Honors Choir concert. Both Angevine and LMS participate in this concert. We feel that the timing, short notice and the lack of communication affected the turnout at this meeting. We would like to see more time and consideration given to this decision to allow the residents affected to voice their opinions. We feel all residents should be notified of this since it could adversely affect them all in the future. It is our understanding that only families with students currently enrolled in the school were notified.
We just built a new home in this area and the Louisville schools were a deciding factor for us living in this neighborhood. We feel that the neighborhoods in north Louisville are being unfairly singled out to solve the problems in Lafayette. If this goes through our property values will be adversely affected. We recently sold our previous home in this same neighborhood and this family specifically moved here from Golden because of the reputation of the Louisville schools.
We know many families that live in Indian Peaks, Blue Heron, Spring Creek, etc. that currently open enroll into the Louisville schools. If they attended the Lafayette schools this would solve the destratification problem in the Angevine/Centaurus district. It seems to us that focusing on getting the people in that enrollment area to go to those schools would be a better solution. Even though the stated plan now is not to redistrict we can see no other reason for the dual enrollment other than a lead into redistricting. We did not buy a house in Lafayette and are not interested in going to Lafayette schools so we should not be forced to open enroll into our own neighborhood school in Louisville.
We do not think that making these neighborhoods dual enrollment areas will encourage Louisville students to attend Lafayette schools since they are already able to open enroll there. The problem right now is the Lafayette people leaving their neighborhood schools to come to Louisville. We feel the proposed spending of about $60,000 to bus our kids to Lafayette would be better spent on improving the Lafayette schools so they are more desirable to the residents of Lafayette. The bus service in our neighborhood was cut several years ago to save money. Why is the cost of busing all of a sudden not a consideration?
We strongly appose this proposal and would hope you reconsider and focus your efforts were they can be most useful. Busing is not going to solve the Lafayette issues.
Doug and Ann Chesnut
Norht Louisville Resident
I suggest the focus be on what is best for the children who will be impacted by this change. Generally, I do not see how it is beneficial for them to be bussed past their neighborhood school to another.
The questions to be asked are "How will this change benefit the children who will be impacted? Will the quality of their educational services be improved or will it be decreased by these actions?"
My opinion on the issue of "dual enrollment" :
If such an imbalance in attendance areas exist in Lafayette, the solution lies in encouraging residents to attend their local schools, not in busing from outside the community. Louisville schools for Louisville residents, Lafayette schools for Lafayette residents. Why are more than 50% of Lafayette school children choosing to open enroll outside their community?
At the very least this issue needs to be postponed to allow residents of Louisville north of S. Boulder Rd., like myself, to properly assess the issues and impacts of this proposal. I only was made aware of this issue, on way too short a notice.
Dear BVSD members:
Just today we found out about the BVSD proposal of a dual-enrollment in Lafayette and Louisville middle and high schools – for north Louisville children. We also learned that initially, only LMS and MHS students and parents were notified. Why weren’t Coal Creek Elementary kids and parents notified as well as the property owners in general? If passed, this proposal could affect all of us.
As property-owners in North Louisville, we are against the idea of dual enrollment. It is unnecessary as kids in north Louisville already have the opportunity to open-enroll in Lafayette schools. And, the idea smacks of suspicion. Residents are wondering if this will lead to forced enrollment in Lafayette schools, forcing north Louisville residents to open-enroll if they want to go to Louisville schools – their own schools? It also has great potential to affect our property values – should north Louisville become a Lafayette school district. Many of us have lived here for 10-15-20 or more years and have supported the kids and programs in Louisville schools. For us it is a true community and any plans to force enrollment outside of Louisville would be devastating to that community.
Please spend the time, effort and funds that would be spent on this idea and use those resources to make Lafayette schools enticing to Lafayette residents. Yes – it is a district-wide problem – but bring the DISTRICT into it – not one small section of homeowners. Dual enrollment is unnecessary and will create more problems than it solves.
Thank you,
Jim and Wendy Phillips
Dear BVSD Board Members and Dr. Chris King,
The proposed "dual enrollment" area for students residing in the N. Louisville area was brought to our attention just two days ago. We learned of this proposal purely by chance through neighbors who have children attending LMS. We were shocked that BVSD did not inform us directly of this proposal that affects our neighborhood and will directly affect our two young children. We feel this is unacceptable. BVSD should have contacted every household in the targeted neighborhoods of this proposal. In light of this, we feel BVSD should postpone the action scheduled for Dec. 13th and immediately inform every North Louisville resident by mail. This courtesy will allow residents adequate time to discuss and digest this information.
We also feel that BVSD providing bus service from our neighborhood into Lafayette right past our neighborhood middle school LMS (which our kids can walk to) is fiscally irresponsible. These precious financial resources should not be wasted busing kids from one town to another. Instead they should be used for the schools that need them most.
Our family moved to Louisville because we love the community. We want our children to grow up in Louisville and attend Louisville schools. I personally taught at LMS for the previous five years. I know first hand what a truly fantastic school it is before even considering the fact that BVSD will be pouring an additional 16 million dollars in renovations making this a state-of-the-art middle school. Given this, we fail to see any benefit in sending our children on a bus past their wonderful neighborhood school LMS. We were under the impression that the recent cut back in open enrollment slots to Coal Creek Elem. and LMS was supposed to encourage people to attend their neighborhood schools. We applauded BVSD for this and now, less than a year later, we find ourselves completely baffled by this latest proposal encouraging children to leave their neighborhood schools and enroll in the next town over. Again we ask where is the benefit in this?
Finally, if BVSD is serious about restratifying the Lafayette schools they should begin this process with Lafayette residents. The same residents who currently flood our Louisville schools and in some cases make up as much as a full quarter of the Louisville school populations! This does not even consider the residents who make up sections of Indian Peaks, Blue Herron, etc. who are currently bussed out of Lafayette, at taxpayer expense, and into Boulder schools. Can we please apply some common sense to this issue and put an end to the madness and fiscal irresponsibility involved with transporting children away from their home towns and neighborhood schools.
Doug and Jennifer Dombek
538 West Ash Court
303-666-1356
All,
I just sent the following note to the BVSD board.
I agree with recent posts that call for wisdom in using property values as a primary argument. As I see it, the problem for the school board is that this is a very poor use of money. It is passive and offers no real solution to the underlying problem.
I make my decisions for school for my children based on quality of the educational opportunity. It is not my intention to cause nor support "stratification" in any way, but I would not make a decision to bus my kids across the city to solve a "stratification" issue because it does not address our primary need: quality education. If Angevine and Centaurus become the schools that we would all open enroll to, I would consider it regardless of racial distribution, income levels or any other "politically incorrect" reason that people who open enroll might be accused of.
That said, we have really enjoyed the sense of community and neighborliness that we have felt since moving here and using our neighborhood school. It is something that I think folks who open enroll really miss out on.
I took a value-for-money-spent tact, and will make an effort to emphasize this at the board meeting tomorrow night.
David S. Early
Sr. Sales Engineer
IBM Tivoli Netcool Software
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(c) 720-939-7606
(o) 720-225-9009
dearly@us.ibm.com
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Dr. King and the Members of the Board,
I need to add my voice against this proposal.
I have read a number of items, including responses from Dr. King to attendees of the meeting last week, and I am still unconvinced that this is a judicious course of action and a wise expenditure of district funds.
Here are my issues with the proposal:
1. Open enrollment gives parents the choice, which they will make regardless of transportation options. The option is already there
2. The fact that there is stratification in the schools concerned should indicate to the board that there is an issue with the schools, not the transportation system. Why is money being spent here?
3. The proposal singles out 2 specific sets of schools. If this is an effort to improve the prospects of the school generally, why is this not a wider area of "opportunity"? Doesn't this create an odd precedence of providing bussing between open enrollment schools?
Open enrollment is both the problem and the solution. The fact that people can open enroll in any school in the district is very progressive and offers opportunities to people that they might not otherwise have access to. However, open enrollment also encourages people to leave schools that are not performing well. Combined with the fact that many of the people who open enroll have the time and means to shuttle their children all over the county you have a system that will not only encourage stratification, it will make it increasingly difficult to resolve due to patterns established as part of open enrollment (e.g. kids start in a remote school, they will want to continue there).
The simplest solution would be to stop open enrollment. As that is not really feasibleit would seem that the natural solution would be to use the money to improve the local schools to make them the type of schools people will actively seek out.
The bottom line is that as long as active and interested parents can simply move their kids to a school that they think is better, they will make no effort to increase the quality of their local school. It falls to the district to actively and continually improve the quality of the individual schools. Please don't waste district funds on this proposal. They would be better spent making Angevine and Centaurus the types of schools that we would all want to open enroll too! THAT is how the money should be spent, not on a passive bussing program.
Dr. David S. Early
I support the dual enrollment, and, in fact, I am excited about it. I like the fact that I have more options, not fewer, and that the this proposal will make the administrative process easier. Both Centaurus and Monarch have strengths, and our family values the opportunity to review each and select the one that fits our needs best.
Louisville Resident in Coal Creek neighborhood North of S. Boulder.
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