As residents of district d204 “All Residents of The plaza on New York and Lehigh Station “ Voice Loud and clearly that we are strongly against the “School Boundary Change” proposed CONCEPT 1 of School boundary change. It contradicts numbers 1, 7, 9, 10 of the Boundary criteria. Owen elementary is very far away from this subdivision, it is dividing the students of the same subdivision into different schools, it is changing all 3 elementary, middle, and high schools for the subdivision which is highly disruptive. 

1. As it will NOT fundamentally address the difference in the count of students attending ELEMENTARY/MIDDLE/HIGH school. It is extremely disruptive to our community, our families, and most of all, to our students.   As a result, the Board of Education will lose trust and support from many residents. 

2. Changing school boundaries forces people to attend schools they did not choose. It not only disrupts children’s education but also negatively impacts people’s property value. Choosing where to live and what schools to go to are some of the most important decisions people make in their lives.  Many families made significant sacrifices in their lives in order to invest in their children’s education and their future. Their choices deserve to be respected and honored.

3. Changing school boundaries and moving students from one facility to another poses a tremendous amount of uncertainty, stress, and disruption to our students and their academic, extracurricular life, on top of their already busy lives.

4. Changing our current school boundaries will set disturbing precedence for future decision-making.  Rather than developing and executing a student-centered, forward-thinking strategic plan, the board is over and over again resorting to boundary change as an easy fix to resolve enrollment challenges.  The uncertainty will spread to more and more homeowners and cause a significant adverse impact on the entire D204 community. 

5. We want the boundary committee to publish the Correlation of High school test scores and the property valuation of all 3 high schools as we feel lower valuation and test scores have a high correlation Given the currently proposed boundary process will further accentuate this trend. This may violate the civil rights of the residents given the inequity. 

6.   We strongly urge the Board to COMPLETELY DROP the 2021-22 Boundary process or at minimum Drop the Proposed CONCEPT 1 of potential boundary change for “The plaza on New York and Lehigh Station Subdivisions “.