Friday, April 27, 2012

CHUH schools: Headed for a split?

You can read it on the Plain Dealer website, in the Patch and elsewhere: University Heights parents are pissed. UH parents are fed up and with good reason: taxes have risen, performance has fallen, and it’s a longer hike to get their kids to schools where their kids don’t feel safe. Add to that, UH parents feel they are being run over by the CH dominated board. The absolute arrogance of the CH(UH) school board knows no bounds: blowing off Mosdos’ offer to buy the empty Milliken, spending more per pupil for less results, and now they want to close Gearity, the ONLY Elementary school in University Heights. This is the arrogance of power, the arrogance of one big suburb bullying a smaller one. SOUND FAMILIAR? UH parents are now openly talking splitting off from CH and joining another district. I’d wager quite a few parents in lower west South Euclid who are forced into the CHUH schools feel the same way. Good luck with that. First, they’ll need to get approval from the Ohio Board of Education. Then there’s the issue of who to join. Some want Shaker, some want Beachwood. But Beachwood and Shaker are doing fine on their own thank you very much, and they might not be so interested. One snob has pooh-poohed joining SEL as being the same as Heights. Granted the SEL schools aren’t what they were. But they’re head & shoulders above CH. Taxes are also lower although they’re still too high. What’s real funny is that Fran Mentch and Susan Miller are sending up their old smokescreens. Mentch is whining about the retention basin at Oakwood. Miller aka 216ism is bitching about the taxes from Legacy Village. Hey Susie, Hey Fran, I know you read this blog, so listen up: MONEY IS NOT THE ISSUE FOR THE HEIGHTS OR THE SEL SCHOOLS, IT’S PERFORMANCE! THROWING MORE MONEY AT THE PROBLEM DOESN’T FIX THE PROBLEM. Of course, they wouldn’t know about the schools first hand, they’re too old to have kids in school.