Offer solutions, not complaints, to I.C. school district

Here we go again. Another person complaining bitterly about the Iowa City Community School District's school board, without offering any suggestions. It's more of the same that's been going on for more than a year.

The school board has been trying to resolve a serious problem, with precious little success. Some elementary schools such as Grant Wood and Kirkwood have unbelievably high percentages of students from lowest socio-economic homes, while other schools such as Lincoln and Wickham are filled mainly with students from middle class and upper class homes.

For instance, based on percentage of students qualifying for financial need-based free and reduced cost lunch (FRL) program, data from the 2013-14 school year reveals Lincoln at 4.3 percent and Wickham, 10.8 percent, compared to Grant Wood, 78.8 percent, and Kirkwood, 73.9 percent. There's room for discussion about the specifics of those figures, but it remains a clear indication of the socio-economic disparity among our district's elementary schools.

That's not fair. It's not right. It's bad for the students involved, and it's bad for our entire community.

Joshua Sabin of North Liberty wrote a guest column in the May 30 Gazette ('School board out of touch in Iowa City”) complaining about '…. the blatant arrogance of the board leadership and total disregard of the public… .” It was later published in the June 2 Press-Citizen as a letter to the editor.

Mr. Sabin suggests no alternative for how the board should address the unacceptable situation.

Serving on the school board here is a virtually impossible job. The board is responsible for making decisions based on what's best for the entire school district, while parents and others are primarily (often quite emotionally) concerned with what's best for their own children and their own neighborhoods.

Don't get me wrong, serving on the county board of supervisors or city council, or in the state legislature, is no picnic. But at least those people are paid for their efforts and usually are in line for a modicum of respect. School board members get no pay and little or no respect.

Past school boards share in the blame for the present diversity problems in our schools. They failed to implement periodic adjustments in school boundaries, at least every 5-10 years. And past city councils share in the blame for allowing very real pockets of poverty to develop and worsen in our community without addressing the situation with planning and zoning adjustments. The latter is painful for me because, during part of the last decade, I was involved with Iowa City's government, and I don't recall grasping the significance of how the growing problem impacted our schools.

But the problem is here. It's real, and it needs to be productively assessed, discussed and resolved to the best extent possible. In our entire metro area, students' education and our community's reputation suffer if we allow 'have” and 'have not” schools to exist.

You don't like what the school board is trying to do about it? If so, what do you suggest to begin resolving the present unacceptable situation? And by that I mean something other than just complaining.

Don't ask me, because I don't have a clue. I'm on the outside looking in, and about the only thing I know for sure is, when it comes to necessary periodic altering of elementary school boundaries, a whole lot of parents and others in the neighborhoods involved are probably going to be unhappy about it.

Change is often difficult. When that change impacts the elementary school to which our children are going and/or which our children have previously attended, we're usually not happy about it.

l Bob Elliott is a longtime resident of Iowa City. Contact: elliottb53@aol.com