A friend asked me how the fight to save the school was going.Well, I replied, the more we learn about the fate the OUSD board has chosen for our children, the angrier we get.
What you need, he advised, is an angry parent with a law degree.
What angers me today?
A concerned parent shared the following information with me:
The district’s recently released bus schedule will have children in Modjeska Canyon board the school bus at 6:30 am in order to get to Chapman Hills Elementary by 8 am, a 1 ½ hour, 19 mile ride. The children face the same length of time for the return trip in the afternoon.
Furthermore, a portion of that 1 ½ hour ride will combine high school and junior high students with the elementary school students on the same bus. This is a situation that is usually avoided due to the potential exposure of elementary school students to the talk and behavior of the older students.
In addition one of the groups - perhaps the younger students - will be pulled off the bus at a certain point and transferred to yet another bus.
This plan does not serve the interests of our children or our community - nor the stated mission of the OUSD: "...being committed to continual improvement, [OUSD] will offer a learning environment of excellence,with high expectations, to provide each student with the opportunity to be able to compete in the global economy."
Instead of educational opportunities, the children of the canyons are being offered three hours of daily bus travel, which, in some seasons will begin on chilly mornings before dawn.
The failure of the elected board members and the superintendent to face this issue is shameful.
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The standard bus ride for elementary school students is about 30 minutes - it seems that this OUSD plan more than violates that common practice. Add the commute time to the other unpleasant and dangerous features - well, it's appalling.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if we have any legal grounds to oject - just moral ones, I suppose - and the fact that this group of people has decided that we - and our children - are dispensable, easy to ignore.
ReplyDeleteToo bad we can't get any media coverage on this. This is what happens when your newspapers disappear - so do your rights.