LETERS: GOOD RATIONALE FOR GRANDFATHERING

To the editor:

Recently, the Cape Girardeau School District administration disseminated extremely misleading and contradictory information concerning the issue of grandfathering. Relying upon this misinformation, the Board of Education voted against grandfathering at its last meeting. Unfortunately, this same misinformation was printed in a front-page article in the June 5 Southeast Missourian. Via this article, one is led to believe that grandfathering will cause overcrowding at all elementary schools except the new Blanchard School for which underutilization was cited as a major concern. This is an absolutely erroneous conclusion based on irrational if not ludicrous logic as will be described below.

In brief, grandfathering allows students affected by the new boundary lines to complete their elementary education at their current school. Transportation becomes the family's responsibility. The concept is that simple. Logically, one must first determine how many students' families would choose to grandfather. Once known, the projected school populations and average class sizes may then be calculated using simple math.

To determine the interest in grandfathering, the administration sent surveys to all 225 current students affected by the new boundary changes. Once simple questions was asked: "Would you prefer grandfathering?" Of the 225 surveys, 153 were returned, of which 97 answered yes, 48 no and 8 indicating no preference. Seventy-two surveys were not returned, which could reasonably be interpreted as no interest.

Logically, one would them expect the administration to use the survey results and analyze the impact of grandfathering the 97 students who responded "yes." Right? Wrong. Incredibly, in its presentation to the board and your newspaper, the administration ignored the survey and assumed that all 225 students would be grandfathered. This is equivalent to saying that 100 percent of the population favors a school bond issue even though 21 percent voted no and 36 percent did not vote. This logic completely escapes us. At the last board meeting, the administration and certain board members cited "bad science" in opposing grandfathering. Rather, it appears they suffer from "bad math."

The bottom line is that the survey results were completely ignored in evaluating the impact of grandfathering. Let's look at the real facts:

The administration has admitted, and the data support, that the impact of grandfathering all students at Clippard and Alma Schrader is basically a wash due to a relatively even exchange of students between the two schools. In other words, these two schools are basically trading the same number of students between them. Thus, grandfathering would not materially impact their projected school populations. Additionally, only 62 of the 130 students surveyed at these schools voted "yes" to grandfathering, making this even more of a non-issue. Furthermore, 37 of these "yes" votes were from future fourth through sixth graders, an even smaller group. Especially for this group, we ask: What benefit is gained by uprooting these students when there is little or no impact on the respective school populations? Why not allow them to grandfather? We, and the other parents and students who are impacted, deserve rational answers to these questions.

The major grandfathering concern of the administration appears to be projected overcrowding at Franklin and underutilization of the new Blanchard School. This is a fallacy. We admit this would be problematic if all of the 102 Franklin students targeted to move to Blanchard were grandfathered. However, only 35 of these 102 students voted "yes" to grandfather, of which only 18 were in grades four to six. The remaining 67 students who voted "no" to grandfathering or who did not respond could go to Blanchard. Thus, Franklin's projected population would decline from 397 to 330, and Blanchard's would increase from 324 to 391, bringing both to reasonable occupancies. The overcrowding-underutilization perception if fiction.

We first brought the concept of grandfathering to the administration in December 1998 as a potential transitional tool for any boundary changes. We have proposed grandfathering fourth through sixth grades for those who choose to grandfather. These students will have spent at least four years, or more than half of their elementary education, at their current school. Additionally, this provides a three-year transitional period for the new boundary lines, which is not an unreasonable period of time for a strategic initiative of this nature and impact. Based on the survey results, this amounts to a grand total of 55 students. The data show there is room at their current schools to keep them there. Frankly, this should be a nonissue.

However, the administration and certain members of the board appear to have closed their minds to grandfathering with no rational explanation or analysis to support this decision. Rather, it has chosen to ignore important surveys and facts, manipulate data and draw illogical conclusions, all in an apparent effort to portray grandfathering as a negative means for a selfish and emotional few. Perhaps the administration is concerned about setting future precedent because "this has never been done before." Does that, in and of itself, make it a bad idea? Grandfathering may not be a viable future option for future boundary changes, but if it is workable now, why not? Perhaps the administration is looking to save face and re-assert its authority over the last vestige of the attendance-boundary battles. We hope this is not viewed by the administration as a battle to be won just for the sake of winning at least one. Is it really worth it?

We and the parents of the 152 other students who responded to the grandfathering survey did so with the best interests of our children in mind. We appeal to the board and administration not to add injury to insult by both ignoring our survey responses and by presuming to know that all of our children "will adapt just fine" where they are. Each child is an individual with varying needs and personalities. Grandfathering provides an opportunity to consider those children for whom this major change and related pressures may be detrimental to their healthy development and potential academic success.

Again, we ask: "Why not?" We have yet to receive an answer.

BILL and MAUREEN DUFFY

Cape Girardeau