A hearing at Hillwood High School about a plan that would end mandatory cross-town bussing for Metro Schools drew only a light crowd of parents and teachers last night.
The student rezoning plan has been a controversial one because schools would reflect the racial and socioeconomic makeup of the neighborhoods they are in. Hillwood stands to gain more affluent students from the neighborhoods surrounding it. Many of those students are now zoned for schools in the Pearl Cohn High School cluster, which would end up higher minority and higher poverty under the rezoning.
Rafiq Vaughn, who is black and lives in the Pearl Cohn cluster, says a return to neighborhood schools could be good for everyone.
“I feel like that’s what happens. When you had bussing come in, that sense of school pride, it left because the people don’t live there. If I’m on the bus a half hour to come to school, I don’t care about my school because it’s not in my community. So we need to build communities for schools as opposed to building schools for communities.”
The NAACP has spoken out against the rezoning proposal, calling it a return to the days of ‘separate but equal.’
The Metro Schools rezoning, if approved by the School Board, would go into effect in fall 2009. Another public meeting will be held at John Early Paideia Thursday night at 6.
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