Lol. This reminds me of the neighborhood that I grew up in L.A. It was a relatively affluent neighborhood, but for awhile was one of the financially poorest public school systems- namely because of all the stingy residence that refused to donate money to the public school system.
Long story short, the school system was in such financial strain, they had to close two of the three high schools. Still, appealing to residence, no money poured in. Then in the worst possible shape, some board member suggested if things continue, they would have no choice but to merge with L.A. Unified, and consequently the possibility of bussing kids from the inner city up to the neighborhood….That did it….The money poured in, the financial problem was solved, and has never been a problem since.
..I'm sure there's a campaign leaflet that would say something like "Donate and Protect your Community or Else".
I think the RSF exclusion is pretty comical imho, because we're not talking about run-down "ajoining neighborhoods". I guess though, some people like having their heads up high. Well, nothing wrong with that, to each and everyone's own.
BTW, we have a friend that lives in RSF, and the weird part is they can't receive mail delivered to their home address. it has to go to a PO Box or something. I thought this was a little strange and for me it would be sort of annoying. But then again, I'm sure he has people that fetch his mail for him.
But Raptorduck, I can say being from the bay area. Redistricting lines for which public schools you have access too does cause property values to plumet by 50%. I don't know if you followed the issue that happened over in fremont. But here's a refresher if you didn't remember…
In 2000, the Fremont Unified School District announced plans to redraw the school boundary lines, prompting concerned parents to file a number of lawsuits against the school, as well as threaten to break off and form its own school district. The plan would route students from high-scoring elementary schools (such as Weibel Elementary School) to a lower-scoring high school (Irvington High School). At the center of the controversy were claims by the parents that the plan was racially driven, as the student body of both Weibel and other schools in the attendant area were over 80% Asian.[5]
The school district claimed that although they were trying to balance the schools in the city more, the underlying reason was because Mission San Jose High School was becoming extremely overcrowded, and students would have to be moved to a different high school.
In the fall of 2000, a lawsuit was filed against the school district, as well as the five school district board members and superintendent Sharon Jones. Filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, the parents claimed that their children's education was at stake because they would be enrolled at a less competitive, lower scoring school. They felt that the boundary line changes were made based on the racial stereotype that Asian students have higher academic performance, and that the school district is trying to improve low test scores at Irvington High School by routing these Asian students over. At the time, Weibel held the third highest API score for all California elementary schools. Lawyer Erika Yew stated that, "We believe the district attempts to artificially and quickly inflate the performance of the district by moving the Weibel students to Irvington High School." She insisted that the district was trying to maintain a racial and socio-economical balance within the district, which is a violation of the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment.[6]
Allegations of racial discrimination was also made due to heated debates at public school board meetings. The parents claimed that white parents would make disparaging remarks toward the Asian families by mimicking and mocking Oriental accents and implying that they abuse their children by forcing them to study. More importantly, it claimed that some white parents refer to people in the Weibel community as “immigrants,” “excessively wealthy” and “elitists,” “not assimilating,” and that the district and board members had similar sentiments.[5]
The lawsuit was later dropped, as a compromise between the parents and school district was made. [5]
The Boundary Line Controversy was revived when, in June 2007, Fremont Board of Education proposed as an option to route students from Gomes Elementary School to Kennedy High School, once again citing overcrowding at Mission San Jose High School. However, the proposal itself is problematic, as Kennedy High School is located on the other side of Fremont from Gomes Elementary School; if the boundary change were implemented, transportation problems would emerge. Even though the option was not recommended by the Board in the June meeting, the mere mention of the school name arose strong concern and reaction from the local communities. A town hall meeting was held on June 12, 2007 between two of the board members, Nina Moore and Larry Sweeney, three assistant superintendents, and the parents of Gomes school students. More than 1500 people attended the meeting. To ease the concern from local communities, the president of the board, Nina Moore, agreed to drop the Gomes name from their option list. Yet as long as the root causes of the school over-crowding are not addressed, the school re-boundary controversy will linger and looms large on the mind of entire Mission San Jose communities.
Some of community members have been discussing the reasons for the overcrowding that has occurred in the MSJHS attendance area even after the large Weibel Elementary area was moved to Irvington area in 2000. The top ones that have emerged are the large number of new housing developments that have been completed in the post 2000 MSJHS attendance area, residents moving into existing homes in the hope of sending their kids to the area schools. Lastly there is consensus and evidence that a large number of student enrollments especially in the Jr. High and High Schools are based on fraudulent residency documents.
