Quote:
Originally Posted by Peanut
I don't understand what people expect when they move into a community that doesn't have any schools. Who cares if your neighborhood is "expensive" or not? I don't think the CBE prioritizes the school construction budget based on average house price in a neighborhood (or at least, I hope they don't).
On the other hand, I think the CBE could tweak their approach somehow to better match reality. There are a bunch of underutilized schools (in my opinion) because of the life cycle of neighborhoods. People move in, have families, kids grow and move out, and people often still live in their houses for a long period of time until they decide to downsize or become snowbirds or move to assisted living or whatever. Or die, even.
So the geographical need for schools is kind of transient with the population base. I'm not sure the best way to address it but constructing more portable schools somehow, or smaller less expensive schools that portables could be added onto to meet demand in the peak attendance years would seem to make some sense.
Admittedly I haven't thought about it too much. I made sure when I bought my house that there was a public school decently ranked, within walking distance, and not in danger of needing a lottery system.
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In a lot of ways they do this already. The new schools are built to the size of long term neighbourhood demand. Then they add portables to whatever max capacity the school can handle and then they bus the surplus kids at the peak of the the child population curve to other schools.
Mahogany and Cranston are currently in the bussing phase and it makes parents very angry and tgat is when you here the "I bought a house right beside the school and now my kids can't go to it". Complaints.
I think your last point is very important that individuals need to research the schools as part of deciding where they live. Realators need to do more than say this is where the school will be built (in 10 years) and here's a school you can go do (if you win the lottery)