Community Corner
Greenwich Parents: Keep Our Neighborhood Schools
As the public forum continues on Greenwich's efforts to redistrict its public elementary schools, the message is loud and clear: 'Keep our neighborhood schools.'
Greenwich parents, particularly from the Parkway school district, made it abundantly clear to the Board of Education Tuesday night—do not redistrict.
The parents spoke during two separate public forums held Tuesday night at Western Middle School where they were told by Board of Education chair Leslie Moriarty, "We are listening…we are now debating how to we devise a new plan to do something that will have a lasting effect." She added, "The board is very clear that it wants decisions that will have a positive impact and improves achievement for students."
Several parents from Parkway School in backcountry Greenwich spoke in favor of one of the four options the school board is considering—creating an attractive magnet school program to entice parents to elect sending their children to schools outside their neighborhood district.
Parkway parent Carolyn Baek said, "Parkway can be a wonderful solution that can be a win for parents and for the school." She suggested that the magnet school option include organizing Parkway into a 'STEM' school with a science, technology, engineering and math focus.
Baek added, "Providing the element of choice is critical for parents."
Limor Pompa and Kelly Schnabel, of the Parkway PTA, told Moriarty and School Superintendent William McKersie, "Parents are dismayed at the compressed timeline ... in a two-week, end of year time frame."
On June 6, the board's consultants unveiled their proposed options of how the district can address the continuing issues of racial imbalance at Hamilton Avenue and New Lebanon schools. There are four separate options with various scenarios for most of those options (please see attached PDF on the presented options). All involve redrawing individual school attendance zone boundaries and transferring students to schools outside of their neighborhoods.
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Moriarty said, "There certainly is a great deal of emotions, but some of the message we’ve been hearing loud and clear is that people like our neighborhood school system, they do not want forced change."
The next public forum on the options is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday, June 14 in the Greenwich Town Hall Meeting Room.
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Other public hearings are scheduled for:
- June 14: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Town Hall Meeting Room, 101 Field Point Rd.
- June 19: 7 p.m. at Eastern Middle School, 51 Hendrie Ave.
- June 20: at the Board of Education meeting at 7 p.m., Greenwich High School, 10 Hillside Rd.
For more information:
Here are links from the Greenwich Board of Education website on the facility utilization and racial imbalance.
To view a Vimeo broadcast of previous meetings on the issue,click here.
For the district’s online public comment process, click here.
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