EDITORIAL
By: Ruth Luse
Redistricting (or the redrawing of school district attendance boundaries) is always a hot topic, each and every time it comes up. For the 35-year-old Hopewell Valley Regional School District, this topic has arisen several times as population shifts have occurred and construction projects have changed the capabilities of individual schools to handle students.
Each time, some segment of the community has been disturbed with the prospect of having children switched from one school’s attendance area to another. Each time, we believe, the majority of children affected have come through the change and moved on. Children usually find change much easier than their parents.
That’s why we urge the residents of Elm Ridge Park who are faced with the possibility of having their K-5 youngsters move from Toll Gate Grammar to Hopewell Elementary in fall 2002 not to overreact. Not only has the school board not taken any action on this or any redistricting ideas yet, but when it does there will be plenty of time for parents and school officials to help the young students make needed transitions.
The school board already has agreed to consider President Sally Turner’s suggestion that it wait and see what the district’s attendance picture looks like at the beginning of the 2001-2002 school year before making a final decision on any redistricting plan for the following fall.
Hopewell Valley schools are public schools therefore, school officials must make decisions that are best for the student body as a whole, not just for the families of one area. While we fully understand the loyalty to and sense of well-being parents and students have about the school to which they have become accustomed, we believe they can develop similar connections to another elementary school, particularly another in the same school system.
At a recent school board meeting, board member David Goldschmidt said moving Elm Ridge is the only sensible way to maintain parity among the four elementary schools the district is expected to have in 2002. Redistricting Elm Ridge would switch about 62 students from Toll Gate to Hopewell Elementary, enabling Toll Gate to have the same core facilities including rooms for small group meetings and occupational and physical therapy the other three elementary schools already appear assured of having. He also said three other sections of Hopewell Township, which have been considered by the Redistricting Committee as areas that could be moved out of Toll Gate’s attendance area, do not involve enough students to make establishment of elementary parity possible.
One redistricting goal is having 500 students each in the new school, Hopewell Elementary and Bear Tavern (located in the western township) and 335 in Toll Gate. The maximum enrollment in the schools under the guidelines would be 365 in Toll Gate and 540 in the other three schools. About 460 students, most of them from Brandon Farms, are expected to be switched from Hopewell Elementary and Bear Tavern to the new school in 2002.
School officials also hope to: limit as much as possible school bus travel through the Pennington Circle and across Route 31; assign as many students as possible to the school closest to their homes; and to make no exceptions to the redistricting plan once it has been formally adopted by the school board.
The reason for these goals is obvious the school board must try to come up with a plan that best serves the educational, social and safety needs of all its elementary children for the foreseeable future. It cannot make decisions based on the feelings of one neighborhood or one set of parents.
For these reasons, we urge Elm Ridge parents to work with the school district to come up with the best plan for all children. If that plan means that Elm Ridge children must move, then we know their parents and school officials will help them plan for new educational experiences at another fine Hopewell Valley school.