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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 20031204APPROVED 2!3/2004 MINUTES (VERBATIM) ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS Public Hearing on the Potential Impacts of a Possible School Merger December 4, 2003 7:30 p.m. The Orange County Board of Commissioners met for a Public Hearing on the Potential Impacts of a Passible School Merger on Thursday, December 4, ZOQ3 at 7:30 p.m. in the District Courtroom, New Courthouse, Hillsborough, North Carolina. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Jacobs, and Commissioners Margaret W. Brown, Moses Carey, Jr., Alice M. Gordon, Stephen Halkiotis, COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: COUNTY ATTORNEYS PRESENT: Geoffrey Gledhill COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager John M. Link, Jr., Assistant County Managers Rod Visser and Clerk to the Board Donna S. Baker {All other staff members will be identified appropriately below) NOTE: ALL DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO IN THESE MINUTES ARE IN THE PERMANENT AGENDA FILE IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE. ALL RECORDINGS OF THE MEETING WILL BE KEPT FOR 5 YEARS. 1. Opening Comments Chair Jacobs welcomed the public to the public hearing and read the public charge: PUBLIC CHARGE: The Board of Commissioners pledges to the citizens of Orange County its respect. The Board asks its citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the Board and with fellow citizens. At any time should any member of the Board or any citizen fail to observe this public charge, the Chair will ask the offending person to leave the meeting until that individual regains personal control. Should decorum fail to be restored, the Chair will recess the meeting until such time that a genuine commitment to this public charge is observed. Chair Jacobs said to date they have had two public hearings, one on October 16`" and one on October 23rd, and they are in the process of gathering information and the Board of County Commissioners had its first discussion of these matters on November 11t" He asked the speakers to limit their comments to three minutes. 2. PowerPoint Presentation -John LinklRod Visser Jahn Link and Assistant Manager Rod Visser gave the PowerPoint presentation entitled, Orange County Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools -Funding Equity/Potential Impacts Resulting from a Possible Merger. Orange County Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools - Funding EguitytPotential Impacts Resulting from a Possible Merger Orange County Commissioners Public Hearing December 4, 2003 Maior Milestones January 2003 -Commissioner Moses Carey proposed that the BOCC consider whether Orange County Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools should be merged March 2003 - BOCC adopted a CY 2003 goal (Appendix A of September 15, 2003 report) tasking staff to prepare an analysis of implications of a potential school merger April 2003 -Focus of merger evaluation narrowed primarily to legal, organizational, and financial considerations September 2003 - BOCC received staff analysis of potential impacts of school merger in Orange County (posted at www.co.orange.nc.us) October 2003 - BOCC conducted two public hearings to receive public comment regarding potential merger of OCS and CHCCS November 2003 - BOCC work session to consider citizen comments and further discuss potential merger December 2003 -additional public hearing Scope of September 15 Analysis ^ Report is not a formal merger study or merger plan ^ Draws on statutory provisions, experience of jurisdictions that have considered and/or implemented merger ^ Intent of analysis is to present factual information rather than opinion ^ Examples of questions not addressed in analysis: . What school would my child attend in a merged system? . What programming (e.g. elementary foreign language instruction) would be available at individual schools? . Would savings be achieved by merging school systems and if so, how much? Merger Consideration in Orange Countv ^ BOCC appointed School Merger Study Commission in 1985 to examine potential impacts of merger ^ Recommendations of Study Commission {Appendix E} ^ Equalize per pupil funding countywide ^ Fund construction of new schools based an cooperative facilities plan developed by both systems ^ Encourage school districts to investigate areas where economies may be affected by joint operations such as transportation, food service & maintenance ^ Encourage school districts to pursue areas of educational cooperation such as special services Collaboration Efforts ^ Since 1988, funding for school construction and renovation projects has totaled $277 million . Includes four voter approved school capital bond referenda {1988, 1992, 1997 and 2001) ^ BOCC approved policies, standards and funding . Capital funding policy that earmarks annual non-debt revenues available for school and County capital projects . Construction and funding standards for elementary, middle and high schools . School construction impact fees to offset cost of new school construction . Schools Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance and Memorandum of Understanding (SAPFO) to pace development with the County's fiscal ability to build new schools Joint venture in bus transportation/maintenance/fueling North Carolina Statutes Provide Four Ways to Merge School Systems tAppendix ^ Merger of Units in Same County Merger plan developed by boards of education; requires approval of board of county commissioners Merger plan requires approval by State Board of Education Merger plan may (or may not} be made contingent an voter approval Merger of Units in Adjoining Counties Involves merger of county school units in one or more adjoining or contiguous counties with a city school administrative unit Requires approval of the "tax-levying body for the school units" Merger of units by local boards of education City school unit notifies State Board that it is voluntarily dissolving itself State Board required to adopt a merger plan for the administrative unit No role for school board ar commissioners in merger plan; no referendum County Commissioner Initiated Merger Board of County Commissioners adopts plan for consolidation and merger of local administrative units located wholly within the county into a single unit County Commissioner Initiated Merger Preparation and approval of this type of merger consistent with a school administrative unit initiated consolidation and merger with three basic exceptions: ^ County Commissioners must provide local funding for all students at the highest level of any local school administrative unit in the county during the preceding five fiscal years before the merger ^ Boards of education "shall not participate by preparing, entering into, submitting, or agreeing to a plan" ^ "The plan shall not be contingent upon approval of the voters" North Carolina General Statute § 115C-67 provides that after the plan of consolidation and merger is approved by the State Board of Education, it "shall be deemed to have been made by authority of law and shall not be changed or amended except by an act of the General Assembly." Programmatic Considerations * Information compiled by CHCCS and OCS staffs * Comparison of twelve major program areas outlined in report * Program details included at Appendix K Context Of Financial Analysis Most local school funding (e.g. current expense, capital) is now provided on a per pupil basis Staff analysis focused on the funding difference between systems related to CHCCS district tax Post-merger funding must be at highest five year historical per pupil rate upon effective date of merger . Analysis based on reasonable assumptions, but other scenarios are possible ^ Focus on "scope and scale" of potential financial impacts, not precise figures - "tax rate" impacts rather than "tax bill" impacts ^ "Hold harmless" assumption does not imply no increases in other aspects of education funding -that would be an annual budget process decision by the BOCC Tax Rate Impact Of Hypathetical Schoal Meraer ^ Major assumptions ^ Effective date of July 1, 2005 ^ Produce same $1,167 per pupil as CHCCS district tax does in 2003-04 . Uses certified student membership estimates derived from SAPFO forecasting models . CHCCS district tax proceeds replaced for 2005-06 with countywide funding proceeds; district tax rate at zero . Four year revaluation cycle continues, leading to lower required tax rates in later years ^ Estimated Countywide tax rate increase of 17 cents per $100 assessed valuation Estimated Tax Bill Impacts Related to Merger CHCCS district tax assumed at zero as Countywide tax increases by 17 cents per $100 valuation Generally speaking, post-revaluation impacts of merger should be minor on tax bills of properties in the CHCCS district that appreciate around assumed average of 25°~ Examples of net increase in annual tax bills of properties of various taxable values in the OCS district: . $100,000 - $170 . $200,000 - $340 . $300,000 - $510 . $400,000 - $680 Changes in individual property tax bills will be affected by actual changes in property value as of January 1, 2005 revaluation Other Potential Financial Implications ^ Affect on percentage of General Fund budget earmarked for education and 48.1 °lo target ^ Future disposition of CHCCS district tax unresolved ^ Combined available building capacity could allow unused space to be filled through student reassignment ^ With addition of new capacity already "in the works", further new school opening timelines could be delayed beyond current 10 year CIP cycle Other Approaches To Equalizing Funding ^ Countywide Supplemental Tax ^ Increase Countywide Ad Val Orem Tax Rate ^ Financial implications essentially the same as for Countywide supplemental tax ^ Implementation of Orange County Schools Supplemental Tax Hypothetical Countywide Supplemental Tax ^ Could be part of a merger plan, or an alternative thereto ^ BOCC may initiate, or may pursue in response to Board of Education-approved petition ^ In either case, subject to affirmative vote in referendum ^ Proceeds distributed an per pupil basis Hypothetical Countywide Supplemental Tax ^ Major Assumptions: . CHCCS district tax incrementally reduced to zero . CHCCS "held harmless" by continued funding of $1,167 per pupil . Tax base growth of 3% in non-revaluation years, 25% in revaluation years (2005, 2009, 2013) . "Revenue neutral" tax rate adjustments in revaluation years lead to lower tax rates in out years Student membership based on certified SAPFO projections ^ Estimated tax rate impacts 3 year scenario - 16.9 cents 5 year scenario - 16.5 cents . 10 year scenario -10.6 cents Hypothetical OCS District Tax Appendix P1 ^ Requires majority vote in referendum; maximum rate of 60 cents per $100 valuation ^ Would take effect fiscal year following vote ^ Board of Commissioners may initiate election; must call for election if school board petitions ^ Would operate simultaneously with CHCCS district tax; assumes CHCCS is "held harmless"; BOCC establishes tax rate annually ^ One cent an an OCS district tax would generate less than one cent on CHCCS district tax ^ Estimated 2003-04 tax rate needed to generate $1,167 per pupil would have been 22.4 cents Hypothetical Tax Rates Necessary to Provide Equal Per Pupil Funding from CHCCS and Possible OCS District Taxes Commissioner Brown Proposal ^ Equal access for all Orange County children to all available opportunities ^ Create Educational Excellence Task Force by end of 2003 . To be chaired by President Friday, assisted by Dean Grumet ^ Task Force Conclusions/Recommendations . How each system can collaborate, share resources . What educational resources should be shared to achieve equal opportunities . How to increase accomplishments of underachieving students, enrich all programming, preserve academically-gifted curriculum . Practical working models for collaboration and equal accessibility Commissioner Carey Proposal ^ Consider/decide at 02/12/04 BOCC meeting whether school systems should be merged - if yes: . Set effective date of merger as 07!01!06 or 07/01/08 . Appoint Citizens Merger Advisory Task Force, consultant within 90 days to recommend proposed merger plan within 12 months . No student in either system to be involuntarily transferred within 3 years of merger date (except new HS and new MS} . Beginning in FY 2004-05, phase out CHCCS district tax over 3 or 5 years and increase general property tax to offset ^ Ask Boards of Education about willingness to participate in merger plan development, if asked Commissioner Gordon Prapasal ^ Call election on countywide supplemental tax . BOCC to set max tax rate, hold election during May 2004 primary . If tax approved by voters, for 2004-05 set tax rate at 4 cents, adjusting CHCCS district tax down with "hold harmless" provision . Formulate funding guidelines, priorities far countywide supplemental tax . Define "equity" and identify expected total tax increase and time period for that increase School systems work with facilitator to identify concrete steps for collaboration . Interim report in May 2004 on steps for 2004-05 . Final report later on significant collaboration for 2005-06 and beyond Commissioner Jacobs Proposal Create Commissioners' Educational Excellence Task Force to: . analyze available resourceslprograms . address concerns on funding disparities and cooperation . determine needed changes to assure equal opportunity to achieve a quality education . return report to BOCC by end of FY 2003-04 Hire consultant to examine schools operational efficiency ^ Allocate capital funds in CIP far one shared central office . Analyze countywide supplemental school tax scaled to reduce CHCCS district tax ^ School boards plan for collaboration by 06!01104 . middle college program with Durham Tech . single alternative school . ready access to other school system course offerings Joint early childhood program Year round schools exposure Frequently Asked Questions ^ Q: Why are the tax rate impacts cited in the staff analysis smaller over longer periods of time? ^ A: Because of the impacts of revaluation. In the year after a revaluation, one cent on the tax rate produces significantly more than it did the year before. The BOCC uses a "revenue neutral" tax rate after revaluation. When the tax base goes up, the tax rate goes down, to bring in the same amount of revenue. Orange County conducts revaluations of all real property every four years. There are scheduled revaluations in 2005, 2009, and 2093. ^ Q: How would merger affect my tax bill? ^ A: For taxpayers in the GHCCS district, probably not significantly. For taxpayers in the OGS district, since there currently is no OCS district tax, the impact from an increase over time in countywide taxes associated with merger would be significant, from most people's perspective. ^ Q: Would merger undermine the Schools Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance? ^ A: No. While some minor modifications might be needed structurally, the major provisions of SAPFO would remain in place. ^ Q: How is the County's tax base split between the school systems? ^ A: The estimated countywide property tax base for 2003-04 is $9.89 billion. Of that amount, $6.34 billion (64.1%} is within CHCCS; $3.55 billion (35.9%} is within OCS. ^ Q: Where are the registered voters in Orange County? ^ A: Statistics as of October 7, 2003 reflect just over 80, 000 registered voters. 65.4% of these reside within the Chapel HiU-Carrboro Schools district, and 34.6% live in the Orange County Schools district. ^ Q: Where do our schools rank in per pupil funding? ^ A: According to annual reports of the North Garolina Public School Forum, Orange County has ranked first among the 100 counties every year since 9997 in per pupil expenditures for current expense and capital. Table 25 of the DPI "Statistical Profile 2003" indicates that among the State's 997 school systems, OCS ranks 4th in local per pupil expenditures, and 97th in total (state/federat/loco!} per pupil expenditures. CHCCS ranks 1st and 5th, respectively. Q: Have voters in the Orange County Schools district repeatedly defeated the creation of a supplemental school tax in OCS? A: Orange County Board of Elections files indicate that since records have been maintained there beginning in 1969, there has been no referendum on this question. OCS voters have neither approved nor defeated a special district tax. 3. Public Hearina* *At Public Hearings, Commissioners traditionally do not comment in order to allow citizens to have the maximum time to express opinions. Speakers may only sign up for themselves. The maximum speaking time allotted will be 3- minuteslper speaker. Robert Ferguson: Good evening. My name is Robert Ferguson. I am a resident of Carrboro, and I have a son in middle school. I think there are some very positive aspects of the November 11t" proposals by the Commissioners. I think it's a good idea to create an educational task farce comprised of education experts. Although it's not totally clear what the role of such a task force would be, I think it is wise to have education experts influence district decisions, because it reduces the probability that the decision is being overly influenced by politics, emotion, or ideology. It's also very positive to propose collaboration between the two districts. We will all benefit from concrete, reliable, collaborative projects that can be implemented soon. That's important. I am, however, opposed to merger for several reasons. First, bigger is not better. Smaller systems are more user-friendly and more conducive to parent involvement. Parent involvement is a very valuable asset in education. Second, all alternatives to merger are less expensive than merger itself. Third, in my opinion, capital savings claims by proponents of merger are unrealistic. Finally, capital savings are not worth it if they result in children having to give up family time and instruction time for longer bus rides. I hope this decision is ultimately based on facts and reasoning rather than too much emotion or preconceived opinions. Thank you. Mark Peters: I am speaking to you tonight on behalf of the Sewell Elementary SGC. We commend the Commissioners for hearing the concerns of their constituents and for creating proposals, which address these concerns. The SGC has the following input regarding the November 11t" proposals. We support in principle the idea of a task force to find the most effective ways for the two systems to cooperate. However, we are concerned that the goals and the boundaries of the task force have not yet been defined sufficiently far us to agree or disagree to this approach. We also share concerns voiced by the City school board that a task force might be composed primarily of graduate students who have no stake in the outcome and have significantly less credentials and experience than professors and current employees of the school systems. We support the efforts to quickly begin closing the funding inequity gap, particularly as Ms. Gordon has proposed. We have many questions regarding the combined central office facility, and would like to know more details about the goals and benefits of such a proposal. The pre-K facilities should be located throughout the County and not in a central location. We appose Mr. Carey's recommendation that a vote on merger occur in February 2004. And finally, we would like to request that all Commissioner candidates put their position on merger on the public record in a notarized letter prior to the May primary election. David Gerlach: To those wha oppose merger or equate property values and school district reputations with providing equal educational opportunities, I offer the following paraphrase. When, at some future date, history sits in judgment on each one of us, recording whether we, during our brief span of service, upheld our responsibility to our children and our community, our success or failure in whatever capacity we may have served will be measured by our answers to four questions. First, were we truly citizens of courage, with courage to stand up to our opponents, as well as caurage to stand up when necessary to our friends; with courage to resist public pressure as well as private greed; and with courage to stand up and do the right thing? Second, were we truly citizens of judgment, with the perspective judgment of the future as well as the past; of our own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others; and with wisdom enough to know that as part of a majority, we were not always in the right; and with candor enough to admit that? Third, were we truly citizens of integrity; citizens who never ran out on either the principles on which we believe or on the children across our community -City as well as County -who believe in us; citizens who neither have political or economic advantage who could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust in educating our kids. Courage, judgment, integrity, dedication -these are qualities that we as parents can never hope to instill in our children unless we can demonstrate them ourselves. I've heard the arguments against merger -one of higher taxes, lower properly values, longer bus rides, the argument that there's na correlation between school funding and student achievement. But in the end, it doesn't matter who's right about these issues. All that matters is what are we going to do for our kids? Are we going to provide equal educational opportunities for our kids? I think that there's only one solution that will ensure equal opportunity to the excellent education that all our kids deserve, and that is to merge the schools. Spencer Chambless: Good evening, my name is Spencer Chambless. I ga to A. L. Stanback in Orange County Schools. I desire to serve my country in the U. S. Army. But there's this one little problem. Military academies such as Westpoint and Annapolis don't come down to visit Orange County high schools. They do go to Chapel Hill high schools. Why don't they came to Orange County high schools? Well, the reason is that we're just not given the chance to show Westpoint or Annapolis that we are worthy and that we are just as good as the Chapel Hill students dawn the street. Sa please, Orange County Board of Commissioners, give Orange County kids the same opportunities as our Chapel Hill neighbors. Thank you. Lixin Yao: I noticed the four proposals put forward by you, and I'm open to tax adjustment and school district collaborations. However, ane paint, important issues need to be decided by public voting. And I am against any merger proposals. Since there is still one proposal out there for merger, I'm going to talk more about it tonight. My family and I moved from Seattle to the Triangle at the beginning of this year. Before we made the decision to move, the State of North Carolina sent representatives to Seattle and they showed us many good things about North Carolina. One of the most impressive shavings was the performance of students at Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. And we decided to move here partially because we knew our kids could go to the schools in the City school district. However, we never expected that a century old school district could disappear. And this is a surprise to us. And I think the merging of the two school districts is not attractive to employees of businesses who are considering moving to Research Triangle Park. Right now the State is trying to attract businesses and we need to be serious about what we want to do about school merger. And there are six school districts in Cane County, Washington State, where Seattle is. Most districts are very goad, a couple are just average. But nobody in Cane County wanted to merge the six school districts. With this situation going on there, Cane County schools are ranked the best in Washington State. And Washington State is ranked number ane this year nationwide in SAT scares, where more than 50°~ of students took SAT. I believe in education, a smaller system works really better than a larger system. Merger is not the solution. Now I chatted with my colleagues at work recently about merger. And I said I'm not sure about that yet because they have not made the decision yet. And I hope you can make decisions for the majority of the people, not against them. Thank you. Sandra Debussy: I have come to speak tonight because I'm concerned that we are moving rapidly towards a course of action without those of us in the general public -the voters, the taxpayers -really understanding fully what the actual needs and goals and impacts are of what's under consideration. And by that I mean that it's critically important to start with the end in mind; to know where it is that you're going; what the plan is. We've heard about equitable opportunities for all the kids in the County, one I would certainly support. But it is a very vague goal. What I've heard is how a merger might help with costs. I've heard a lot of discussion around different ways to pay to get adequate funding and equalized funding across the two systems, but not what it's going to da to create equal opportunities and what that means, how we define it, haw we're going to know when we've gotten there. Secondly, as somebody who's gone through two mergers in very large organizations, I can tell you from speaking on the inside, it is not a painless process, it's not a fast process, and it's not necessarily - at least in the short term - an efficient process. You have two large organizations with histories, with processes, with cultures that are different; that have been different and have grown different. It's going to take some time to figure out how to merge those two into something that works effectively. I'm concerned that in the short term, what's the impact for my kid in that system, while the people that are the teachers, the administrators, are worrying about their jobs and what it's going to mean far their jobs, and who's going to run the school, and which processes are going to be used, and what the goals are going to be; who's minding the store and taking care of the kids? I'm concerned about what that's going to look like. And as someone else said earlier, larger is not always better. It is not always more efficient. You probably are not going to eliminate many schools. You're probably not going to eliminate many of the teachers, if any. You probably can't cut the administrative staff in half because you have to have somebody running the system. And all of this tends to suggest to me that the cost savings we're talking about boils down to whether or not we can delay building new schools. And if that's the case, the question in my mind is if the time period in which you could delay building new schools is sufficient to cover all of the other casts and impacts that were suggested. Craig Debussy: You've already heard from the better half, but I'd like to have my two cents worth. Some might look at a merger as a marriage between our two school systems. I believe that it was Mae West who said, "Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet." First, thank you for adding this third public hearing. I think many of us were concerned that merger was a done deal by the time we heard of it and got our first look at it in September. I'd like to comment on some of what I've heard at previous hearings, and I'd like to make same suggestions on how we might proceed. We've heard some heartfelt comments at these hearings, but I'm saddened by some of what I've heard from my neighbors in the County. The descriptions of parents in Chapel Hill and Carrboro as selfish, fearful, and a "we've got ours mentality" do an injustice to the people I know who are active in the City schools. We've heard same stories of struggles by families in the County schools. Those of us in the City schools know that there are too many families who face these same struggles. In my son's first year at Seawell Elementary, the school was over capacity by 200 students, and this was just two years ago. Many of his classmates came from poor neighborhoods, and I believe the black, Hispanic, and Asian minorities actually made up the majority of students that year. His teacher, in her first year at Seawell, struggled with not having enough money for supplies in the class. And despite the challenges we faced, the pride of the families who attended the school was evident in the way that they supported the life and the work of that school. Are my neighbors frustrated by the way this merger was presented? Yes. Are they frustrated with some of the misinformation that has been put forward in these discussions? Yes. Would we like to see hard numbers behind some of the rhetoric? Yes. I'm apposed to merger for two reasons. The first is the prospect of bussing. We moved to Chapel Hill two years ago so we could be closer to the high school that my kids will attend. I drive my kids to school in the morning, I volunteer in the class, we do our best to attend assemblies, concerts, programs, and it's going to be hard to do that for my kids if they are on the other side of the County. When you say no kids will be bussed for the first two to three years after merger, what we hear is that we should plan bussing after those first two to three years. My request, my advice is to keep kids at the schools in their neighborhoods and make it easier for the families to participate in the life of those schools. My other concern deals with a lack of hard information on issues that have been raised in these discussions. If you say all kids have the right to reach their full potential, we agree. But how would you measure success so that we can track any change from where things are now? If you say we can save money with a merger, show us haw, show us where. If you say you can't raise money without going to a merger, then tell us why you won't use a raise in Ad Valorem taxes with one of the three scenarios detailed by your awn County Manager. Many of us attended the forum hosted by INFORM where a professor from UNC presented research that raised questions on whether increased funding can improve performance in schools in counties like Orange County. When Mr. Carey was asked to comment an the presentation that night, he dismissed the points made by the professor saying, "We know what we need to know." I think many of us would like to know what he meant by that. And I would like to knave if he was speaking for the Board with those comments. Let me conclude with this. Let's be thoughtful about how we proceed; let's stop the name calling; let's listen to ourselves and each other; and let's agree that the families in the City schools and County schools both care about their schools, their children, and their communities. And we both want to knave this: 1}what is not working in our schools? 2} how would a merger fix those things? 3} whatever changes are made, how do we not lose those things that are working well? I would like to leave a copy of my comments as well as an article from just last week's U. S. News and World Report on how to improve our schools. Thank you. David Weinberg: Commissioners, good evening. My name is David Weinberg, and I speak tonight on behalf of about 50 families from the Chapel Hill district that remains opposed to merger. Let me start by acknowledging the very fine and detailed proposals put forth by Commissioners Brown, Jacobs, and Gordan. The many suggestions for study and collaboration, along with the beginnings of an effort to equalize funding, demonstrated clearly that you have been listening. Commissioner Cordon's proposal for an immediate tax increase that would be available to Orange County Schools next year seems appropriate. It would be cynical of us to spend all this time discussing the deprivations in the Orange County system, but then let months go by without taking any steps to help. Yet even with this new initiative, I believe the shadow of merger still hangs over these proceedings. Three of you, Commissioners Brown, Jacobs, and Halkiotis have yet to take a clear stand on merger during this debate. This is puzzling and distressing to thane of us who have lived with the prospect of merger for nearly a year. It is not as if you have never articulated a position. A survey prior to last year's primary asked the candidates, "Do you support merger of the school districts?" Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Halkiotis both replied that they favored collaboration rather than merger. Mr. Halkiotis said, and I'm quoting that, "A countywide finance plan, with equalized funding at the higher level should be considered before any discussion of merger." Commissioners, we ask you tonight to formulate your position on merger and present it to the public. It is certainly possible, if nothing else, to articulate the circumstances under which you would support merger, or the circumstances under which you would oppose it. It would be very difficult for us to vote for a candidate next May or in any future May primary if the candidate has not taken such a position. Commissioners, one of the basic premises in this discussion has been flawed. All through this debate, we've heard about the trend towards merger in the state of North Carolina. Many of us have come to believe that this is a State priority that we might be forced to merge. investigated this point, and I can tell you that while there was legislative interest in merger during the Martin administration in the 80's, that is not the case now. I've communicated with our State representatives, with the State legal department, and with the Department of Public Instruction. What I've heard from all sides is that merger is a local issue. There is no current movement in Raleigh to push for merger. There is no statutory preference for merger under North Carolina law. Furthermore, the State Board of Education has never taken a position on merger, but has merely complied with the requests for information. Ladies and gentlemen, the trend towards merger over the past 40 years is no longer a trend. There is no legislative interest in merger and there is no DPI interest. There is just the five of you, the County Commissioners. And there are thousands of us in the Chapel Hill district, and we ask you tonight to end this uncertain drama and set a clear course. We ask you to improve funding in the Orange County district without creating a burden on the very families we're trying to help. We ask you to enhance our excellent local systems without destroying them in the process. And finally, we ask you to find solutions that work for everyone. Thank you. Artie Franklin: My name is Artie Franklin. I live in the Chapel Hill part of Orange County. When a politician recently bemoaned the politics that entered the debate of the merger issue, a red flag went up. There can be little doubt that a political calculation was made to introduce merger during anon-election year, to label it a civil rights issue, and to label it a social justice issue. It is clear that this issue has been political from the beginning. One point of contention is the projected capital expenditure for the next ten years. Setting aside the logic of building schools near children, some supporters of merger have labeled this a subsidy because the City will get more than it contributes. Tc find even a veneer of accuracy in the subsidy conspiracy, one must limit consideration for the next ten years. Using the tax revenue projections, appendix R1 provided by the Board of County Commissioners, a quick calculation shows that the City schools will receive $1.30 in capital assets for every $1 its taxpayers contribute. But limiting one's consideration to future events, ignoring recent history is unfair and wrong. During the last ten years, the County school system received $1.25 in capital assets for every $1 provided by non-City taxpayers. City bashers willfully ignore the County's gain in their fairness calculations. On top of that, the City tax base grew at a greater rate than non- City tax base during the last ten years. Since this trend is not reflected in the projected tax revenues, the City's projected tax payments are understated. Consequently, this understatement flaw further fuels the misguided claim that the City schools will be subsidized by non-City taxpayers. Ultimately, the merger debate returns to the end quality and per pupil funding. The Board of County Commissioners is accountable for under funding the County schools, and the remedy is to budget for appropriate funding. Ironically, same merger partisans want to avoid an education dedicated special district tax and leave all of the County's education funding at the mercy of the Board of County Commissioners. Apparently, a merger will ensure that all the County school children are equally under funded. It is evident from their overblown rhetoric, that there was no attempt to sell this merger, because there was nothing to it to sell. It is time to turn the merger issue over to the two boards of education, have them give it substance, and put it to a referendum. While a referendum will not remove the politics from this issue, it will ensure that the decision is made by those who should make it -the voting citizens of Orange County. Thank you. Susan Payne: Good evening. My name is Susan Payne and this is Pang Yao. We both have kindergartners at Seawell Elementary; Pang also has a child who attends Smith Middle School. Like all parents who sit before you tonight, we are concerned and involved with our children's education -devoted if you will, far the long haul. And like all parents here tonight, we agree that there is a strong need to remedy school funding inequities and curriculum disparities between the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and the Orange County Schools. Further we agree, as most parents here tonight do, that all students deserve equal and quality educational opportunities. However, at this time, we do not agree that merger is the best route to this end. Because we feel strongly that all residents of Orange County should have a voice in the school merger issue, we initiated a petition drive to help gauge public opinion regarding school merger. Our petitions, one against merger and one for merger, were posted online an November 12t". We also solicited help to circulate the petitions from within, and outside, the Chapel Hill and Carrboro City limits. Parents just like us circulated these petitions and are still circulating these petitions door-to-door in their neighborhoods, at their kids' bus stops, on soccer fields, at book clubs, and at work -anywhere there are people who are concerned with the merger issue. And while we will continue this effort in hopes that all people who wish to sign will have a chance to do so, we wanted to present to you tonight copies of those signatures we have received to date. The total number of signatures in hand that appose merger at this time is 1,253. The total in support of merger at this time is 18. We realize you already know where the majority of people represented stand on this issue, and while we very much appreciate some of the proposals you put forth on November 11t", we felt it still important that you see the level of concern and involvement that exists at the grassroots level within the community that you serve. Some may call us selfish for being involved in our children's education, for caring where and how they get to school, and for trying to ensure that they too receive the best educational opportunities possible while still remaining close to home in a supportive community environment. As parents, we want the best education for our children; in fact, we want that for all kids. But merger is not the solution. We can see this from the legacy of merger and the larger school system it created in Wake County. It's almost 30 years post-merger in that district, and Wake's latest "redistricting for occupancy" will move some 10,000 students. The parents are disgruntled and feel left out of the loop. Same children must wake up as early as 5:00 a.m. to catch a bus to school, and then they don't stay after because their school is too far away from their homes to participate in activities after school. We think it's fair to say that those of us in the community who are apposed to merger are actively seeking ways to avoid this type of legacy here in Orange County. Every parent wants the best education far their kids. It is not a matter of selfishness, but rather a matter of love. And we stand here tonight representing a majority of parents who urge you to look beyond the idea of merger to find an alternative, better solution that will correct the inequities in our two systems while truly "holding harmless" each and every child in both systems. Thank you. Brian Voyce: First I'd like to thank Commissioner Gordon for her plan to advance the referendum for a County school district tax. And I'd like to thank Commissioners Brown and Jacobs for their plans to study means to further introduce cooperation. Surely students from both school districts can benefit from such efforts. I think we can all, whatever side of the table we're on, take heart from the merger talks that will cover additional benefits for all our students. That's the sugar, now for the vinegar. I've got three points I'd like to bring up with respect to the merger report that I don't understand or I think are missing. First, I don't see where you specifically address the impact of school merger on the County tax base. In all the taxes of money and merger, I seem to have missed the Board's discussion of how school merger will degrade property values in the northern tier of the City school area. I counted 30 neighborhoods north of Homestead Road and Weaver Dairy Road in the City school system. These neighborhoods include homes that range from massive to modest. And these homeowners (or I should say mostly debtors) have mortgages to pay for their houses. Those mortgages are based on market-driven property values. Those property values, in part, are based on what many of the people have talked about in all of these discussions. How long does it take your child to get to school? Can you participate? And how much support can the parents provide in those schools? These homeowners contribute to the County's tax base (the same tax base used to fund schools) to the tune of perhaps half a billion dollars. Merger will most likely drive down their home values, and thus, the County tax base. Many may lose much of their home equity. Who will be the losers here, and by how much? I can't find that from your report. Second, I have missed, in your report, any discussian on the appreciation of home values in certain areas within the County school area. While same City school homeowners will lase home equity, some County school homeowners may gain. Who will the winners be? And again, by how much? I couldn't find anything in your report. Third, you project in Appendix R that the student population for the City schools will grow by 23.5% over the next ten years versus 7.9°~ far the County schools. However, you project growing the separate tax bases for both groups during the same time at the same rate. My question is, do you really believe that with merger during the next decade, the City schools will grow at three times the rates of the County schools? In other words, do you believe that merger will not affect the difference in those student growth rates? Second, do you really believe that with merger during that decade, the County school tax base will increase in lock step with the City school tax base? In other words, do you believe that merger will not affect the property value mix? I think what's clear is the need to hire experts to figure out what will happen within the tax base before any decision can be made on school merger. I think that if we got a nationally respected consultant firm, and with the right qualifications, everybody would feel a lot more comfortable about what's going to happen. Some have framed the issue of school merger in terms of social injustice, implying that County school residents are incapable of raising their own taxes as City school residents have done. I do think that an unprecedented transfer of real property wealth that could occur from a hurried merger will truly be an injustice also. Thank you. Bill Holmberg: Good evening Commissioners. My name is Bill Holmberg. Before my family moved to North Carolina over five years aga, we searched for schools with the right balance of academic, community spirit, and school involvement. My wife, kids, in- laws, and I all moved here together. My wife and in-laws are regular volunteers in the schools. Our kids are very active in the schools activities programs. We live in the zoning of the school system but outside the City/Town line. As like many other Orange County residents, we do not get any City conveniences except electricity. As a contractor, I see many different homes and lifestyles all over Orange County. Everyone seems pleased with the schools where they live. The bus ride for our kids is 45 minutes long. This is due to school redistricting-a second redistricting in just four years. People move to Chapel Hill for one top reason -the school system. Thousands of families change their life to be in that particular school system, by choice. An abruptly merged school system could fail and force people to move out or switch to private schools taking a lot of good money away from the community. Look at Durham, it happened there, and their dream flagship Hillside High School does not hold up academically even though it got the biggest funding in Durham schools history. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro system grows steadily, adapting to change. I can only imagine what would happen to thousands of other people in this situation if the school systems merge and the whole County is redistricted on a much larger scale. It has been stated that merger should be done to equalize spending in the two school systems, that County schools don't get their fair share. Well for years County voters have been voting and telling you they don't want you to spend that much more money than they do. On another note, two public meetings were held at Cedar Ridge High School. It was a beautiful, immense school in much better shape than my daughter's Chapel Hill High. I know that both school systems have old and new schools. My son goes to one of the oldest, Frank Porter Graham. When I heard first at the INFORM meeting that while Chapel Hill-Carrboro has twice as many students as Orange students, I was surprised to learn the school boards are about the same size. Simply correcting that alone could pay for the books, language teachers, nurses, custodial staff, and other items that have been so overdue to them. It also appears that Cedar Ridge High was built bigger than needed for now and in the immediate future. Again, major money was spent unbalanced on things not needed as desperately at the time. Where was the lack of communication and thus the funding? It sounds like money went in some wrong directions to me. Orange schools are also excellent schools and are among the top five in the State. They are also one of the five best-funded systems in the State. A hasty merger would require a hasty appointment of a new school board. Since a board is usually voted in, it would be very undesirable to have our County Commissioners appoint a board of their own. Both systems will suffer in a hastily merged board. Also, there is the fact of volunteer effort and fund raising. One of the things that make Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools unique is its volunteer efforts and community contribution through our PTA and other forms. It accounts for well over $1 million and thousands of hours of service given within our community straight to the school. This helps so many aspects from our environment, minority support, and community connections. This pays for supplies, computers, property upkeep, activities, field trips, cultural and special programs, and other expenses. It is an absolutely needed element that our schools of this great concern, because it would take an absolutely equal look and commitment from Orange County schools and its community to work. That would need to be studied carefully. Many people have been discussing a minority imbalance. To review, Orange schools have a higher AfricanlAmerican minority percentage. Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools have a higher Latino percentage and a higher Asian percentage. The total minority percentage is higher in Chapel Hill-Carrboro. A small group of people have been making some statements, "I want this - I want that, separate but unequal, people must use courage and bravery and be tough to vote against the views of the majority, that Chapel Hill people are discriminatory or prejudiced to them." I'm still waiting to hear mare facts from this group of people beyond the reason that the merger will help increase real estate values, particularly in farmland value and taxation. Also, people say, "they travel an hour to go to school." Why would you want the possibility of making that trip any longer? Separate but unequal - no two schools are equal, never mind the whole district. And again, they voted unequal -unequal against taxes for years, unlike Chapel Hill which has been supporting the additional tax for years. Remember, our two districts can work together to benefit all students without any merger. Scott Wallen: I am representing the Chapel Hill-Carrboro PTA Council in place of our President Etta Pisano, who is out of town today. In October, the PTA Council adopted a position on the merger issue that we provided to the Commissioners. That position opposes a merger at this time because we feel that a convincing case has not been made that a merger is the best way to improve the quality of education for all students. Based on that position, we oppose Commissioner Corey's proposal to hold a vote on a merger early next year. The Council's position also urges the Commissioners to pursue other avenues for improving the quality of education. As such, we support the establishment of a task force to study the educational needs of all students and to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each school system at meeting those needs. This study should address curriculum, staffing, and facility issues. In order to avoid misunderstandings over the purpose of this task force, we believe that the Commissioners, in consultation with both Boards of Education, should state explicitly which issues the task force should and should not address. The PTA Council position recognizes that there are legitimate concerns over how education in Orange County is funded. As such, we support the analysis and possible implementation of new funding mechanisms for the schools. The Council's position also urges both Boards of Education to identify and implement collaborative programs that will provide cost savings or improve the quality of services to students. Ta this end, we support an effort by the Boards of Education to analyze opportunities for cooperation and report back to the Commissioners. That said, we do not support the implementation of any combined service unless both Boards of Education agree that it is in the best interest of the children to be served. Thank you for your consideration of our position. Qin Zen: I'm a Chapel Hill resident. I have children going to Seawell Elementary School. There are a lot of citizens talking about reasons why they appose merger, and I don't want to repeat those reasons anymore. From reviewing the proposals from the Commissioners, we favor Commissioner Cordon's proposal of supplemental tax and facilitation of identifying potential areas for collaboration. Commissioner Brown and Commissioner Jacobs proposals are acceptable to us. Far Commissioner Corey's proposal, what I want to say is any proposal or vote on merger without further studies on the impact on both school districts is premature. As a City parent, I just want to tell you that I don't want my children to be redistricted to a school far away from our home. And I don't want to pay any mare taxes because I'm not rich. Many families, including our family, came to Chapel Hill for school excellence, and many of us also would not hesitate to leave the County if we feel that our children's educational opportunities are harmed and that the tax is too much burden for us. Please don't forget that what makes the City district so great are those families who dedicate their lives to their children's education, not the money spent from the County or the City. Merger will hurt the school district in the long run. Thank you. Weihua Xie: I'm a parent from Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. We all know that bath school districts are wonderful systems and highly funded as the top districts among 117 districts in North Carolina. Salving funding differences in order to remove the education quality difference between two systems is a misconception, because there is no correlation between school costs and student performance. The mast significant and consistent finding in the research is the strong family involvement and student achievement. Overall, the quality of education is the combination of school funding, curriculum, teachers, PTA, volunteers, and diligent and consistent nurturing of parents. Fundamentally, family positive nurturing and student self-motivation is a lifetime guarantee for student academic performance and career success no matter where they live. Chapel Hill City schools has the good reputation of education quality because many families prepare and want this family nurturing environment even before we move in that district. Why do not keep this tradition? The long bus driving from merger will be very difficult for our working parents to be actively involved in our children's education. We do believe that the smaller school system is able to maximize the best interest of each individual district based on student population and life goals. Furthermore, the competition between the two school systems even has the positive impact to improve bath school education qualities. A simple example is like two kids compared to one kid growing up in one family. There is mare competition with two kids, so both kids get benefits from that. We do hear the differences in education; however, these differences could be reassessed by the County school system itself through well designing curriculum or offering courses based on most needs. Or it could be modified through more collaboration between two school systems. So the effort to help County school students should not impact City school students from merger. Merger is not the answer to improve County schools. We support well-assessed efforts to improve the schools and we welcome the Commissioners' proposals to seriously investigate alternatives and how to improve schools without merger. In the conclusion, no merger decision will have the best results for the greatest number of students. Thank you. Kathy Hartkapf: Good evening. I'm Kathy Hartkopf and I live here in Hillsborough. While doing a little shopping at the beautiful new Southern Season store, I was particularly struck by the divisiveness that the merger debate has created. We have calls of social justice, slanderous attack letters, dear friendships forever possibly splintered. An ill-conceived boycott heralded by a school board member in a group with the acronym ROB Chapel Hill. The leading pro-merger advocate is up on criminal charges and about to go to court for removing campaign signs of a candidate who had dared to state that he was opposed to merger. We even have had a burning recycle bin. Were all of these situations caused by the merger debate? It would seem so. If not, at the very least, the public seems to believe so. You chase to use your voter-given power to begin this process. You alone must choose to use your voter-given power to end it. Will ending this debate now completely end the divisiveness? Probably not. Will that step make everyone happy? Absolutely not. But as Commissioner Halkiotis said at a recent meeting, the writing is on the wall. The people have spoken loud and clear and they da not want merger. Absolutely. Da some want merger? Of course they do. Are they the majority of even the district they claim to advocate for? I think not. Commissioner Carey and merger advocates have spoken many times about the need for you to take that brave step and to do the right thing for all of the children of Orange County. I would contend that that right step is to end this discussion, for now, and allow the deep wounds of divisiveness to begin to heal. I would contend that the right step would be to move forward with the task force that Commissioners Jacobs and Gordon have proposed. I would ask that that committee be a fair representation of the diversity of our County, and furthermore, that it not include the leading voices who are either for or against merger. If you choose to take the bold step to end this debate, will the merger debate be over forever? Absolutely not. It is, however, my belief that if adequate time is devoted to in-depth research and analysis of our two districts, we can meet around the table with what is really best for all of Orange County's children. Bruce Capehart: Good evening Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. It is a pleasure to be here, and I appreciate and wholly support all of the many great comments made by the opponents to merger tonight. The last time I spoke to a crowd this size, it was in Afghanistan, where two months ago I was stationed as a soldier, as a medical officer providing psychiatric care for soldiers stationed overseas. I had a great speech outlined to give tonight, but too many people have said too many good things, and frankly, I'm just going to look dumb trying to repeat them because they have had more time to do their homework on this than I have. So instead, I thought I'd mention that this isn't the first time I've been on television as a result of the school merger. Twenty-five years ago today, I was standing an a street corner in Woodland Hills, California when a helicopter flew overhead and I was looking at my watch thinking, "Where the heck is that school bus, this is the first day of school." It was the first day of forced bussing in the Los Angeles school district, and I was out on a street corner for a couple of hours until a white van pulled up, unmarked van. The door opened. My first 12-year old thought is, "Damn, that's a kidnapper, I better run." So I ran down the street. And I heard some guy yelling, "Hey, kid come back." Naw I knew I was doomed, sa I kept running faster. And then my friend yelled, "Hey, he's gat a camera." So I turned around and looked. And it turned out it was a TV crew from the NBC affiliate. Lang story short, my grandma saw me on the Today show the next day. That wasn't for a particularly great reason because my family packed up its bags and we were out of Las Angeles within six months. It did my younger brother and myself no good to be on a bus for two hours each way going to and from school. And after that time one of my resolutions was, "If I ever have kids, I want to make sure something like this doesn't happen again down the road." So, a few years ago when my wife and I moved here from Evanston, Illinois, we decided to pick a school district that we knew would have great schools and no danger of a similar kind of thing happening to our kids in the future. We are fortunate to be in the Chapel Hill school district. Actually, our oldest little munchkin is still a couple of years away from being in school, so it's kind of premature forme to be here tonight. But I'm trying to take along-term view on this whole situation. I'd like my little Virginia and Chamille to go the school in their own neighborhood and not have to ride on the bus for a long time. That gets me around to the second thing of Afghanistan. It may not seem like it has very much to da with Orange County. But you lank around and the first thing you see is grass. There's no grass in Afghanistan. And you see pine trees. And there are a couple of scrub pines in Afghanistan, but not very many. And the one-week that I spent out there providing healthcare to the Kuchi People, they're one of the few nomadic people left in the world where they pack up literally an the backs of camels and migrate hundreds of miles across Afghanistan and Pakistan. You realize these people don't have any freedom. They don't have any freedom of expression. They don't really have freedom of where to live because they have to go where they can get their camels and their goats to graze. And they sure as heck don't have any freedom of expression like we're enjoying tonight. I thank you for the opportunity to stand up here and speak tonight. And I can speak against merger, knowing that there are people in this room who are very solidly in favor of merger. And I know I can walk out of here knowing I'm not going to have to pay someone an AK47. No one's going to put a land mine in my front yard tonight, which is the kind of thing that happens in Afghanistan over things like firewood and goats. This is a great country. What I ask you to do is take some time, really listen to what the people have said to you tonight, and what the people continue to say to you. Take into account what we want for ourselves, for our families, for our children, for their education, and for their future. And if this does come up to where you seriously think merger is a good idea, give us a chance to speak an it directly. Thank you. Robin Staudt: Good evening. I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak again to you on the merger issue. But before I address you on this issue, I must digress in order to aid the young Mr. Chambless. My uncle, who was in the 82nd Airborne, Brigadier General, and buried with honors in Arlington cemetery, was a West Point graduate. He was a coal miner's son in a poor farming community. He demonstrated excellence in school and a desire to serve his country as a first generation American. He wrote his congressman, and then was referred with his application and letters of recommendation. His school, which he came from, was one building for first grade through twelfth. First through third shared a classroom. Three through five shared a classroom. I'm saying all this so that you understand that excellence and education does not necessarily mean high funding. With desire and study and some direction, anyone can achieve his heart's desire in our great country. I believe there is little more fact to present to you tonight on the merger issue than you've already heard. In order to have any absolute certainty of the effects of a merger in Orange County, one would need to merge our two separate, distinct, and relatively successful systems. I also believe that you, as Commissioners, already understand there is a majority belief that merger would not be best far Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County school systems. Nor would it benefit the majority of students in either of these systems. The time has come for reason; the time has come for logic; and the time has come for common sense. Social engineering to bring a so- called social justice to every minority student is a failed theory and practice. It is a more logical and beneficial path to seek out the injustices and deal with them individually. Reason calls for each system to seek out its weaknesses and address them accordingly. The biggest weakness, the most easily viewed weakness in bath of our systems appears to be a lack of expectation towards achievement by many failing students. This is the core of the issue, not one size fits all. Let us strive to encourage and develop all of our youth. Merging Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County school systems will not address this issue. It will only serve to engorge an already loaded bureaucracy. The issue is how to reach our students, how to serve and grow them to be successful fulfilled adults that in turn will reach out to the next generation and encourage and educate them to their fullest potential. We don't need merger. We need reason and respect for our children. This will serve us all. Thank you. Sam Weir: Good evening Commissioners. My name is Sam Weir. We live here in Hillsborough about three blacks up the road. I work in Chapel Hill. I have two kids. Neither of them is in either of these school systems. I came down here tonight to talk because there is na basketball on TV, because I wanted to get some practice public speaking. Thank you for the opportunity to come to speak to you tonight. And I want to thank you far the time that you're putting in, no just on this issue, but for all the issues that face the County and residents. I do not envy you in the next few weeks as you deliberate how you're going to approach this decision, and how you're going to vote an it. Clearly, there are a lot of feelings on this issue in our County. No matter what you do, you're going to make same people unhappy. I'm just here to perhaps suggest same ways to approach your decision, and tell you how I at least approach it. I think it's appropriate that we're meeting in the courtroom tonight. It's appropriate to remind ourselves as previously was so very eloquently done. We live in a country where the rule of law is above the rule of emotion and the rule of the strong individual. Under that rule of law, North Carolina General Statute calls for the provision for a system of free public schools throughout the State, wherein equal opportunity shall be provided for all schools. And so I submit to you Commissioners tonight that the central question for you to consider as you approach this issue is what's the best way to provide equal educational opportunities for all children in Orange County. I'm familiar with your proposals, and I am speaking in the distinct minority, but I am still speaking in favor of Commissioner Corey's proposal to merge the two school districts in Orange County. And again, I do not have a child in either district. I have one kid that's in a middle school and that's a private school, and I have another kid that's in a charter school in Durham County. Equal funding, which is suggested in several of the Commissioner proposals, will not ensure what the law requires, which is equal educational opportunity. Equal funding will not ensure that the child with Down's syndrome in the Cameron Park school district will have the same educational opportunities as a child with Down's syndrome in the Frank Porter Graham Elementary School district. Equal funding will not ensure that a child currently attending East Chapel Hill High, who has aspirations to become a farmer, or who has aspirations for vocational training will have the same educational opportunity as a child that is attending Orange County High. And finally, equal funding will not ensure that a child at Orange High School will have the same opportunities to learn about college opportunities as a child who attends Chapel Hill High. In conclusion, funding equality is insufficient to provide what the law requires, which is equal opportunity far all Orange County students. I therefore submit to you that the only proposal that's currently before you that will adequately ensure the timely provision of educational opportunity for all Orange County students is Commissioner Corey's proposal to merge the two school systems, to seek the school systems' input as to how best to da that, and to do it in such a way that it absolutely minimizes any redistricting that might at some point occur. In conclusion, I might say that I am a product of the North Carolina public school system; I'm a product of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg system, which merged while I was a student there. Merger is not the end of the world. And I think that na matter what happens, many students in Orange County will do well. And I'm sure that you guys will wrestle with this, and I wish you well. Karl Knapp: I want to applaud you for the sentiments you expressed at your November 11t" meeting. You have recognized that the voices you've heard at the first two public hearings were not those of Chapel Hill parents trying to keep their money away from Orange County schools, or those of Orange County parents trying to bring dawn the Chapel Hill schools. Rather, they were the voices of parents who want good schools for their children. We may be divided by our positions an merger, but we are united by this common interest in the education of our children. The proposals made by Commissioners Brown, Gordon, and Jacobs seem to build on that common interest. In addition to highlighting our common interests in the quality of our schools, the public hearings also revealed that there are many unanswered questions about the strengths and weaknesses of our two school systems. The task force proposed by Commissioners Brown and Jacobs would begin to remedy this situation. In establishing this task force, I urge you to work cooperatively with both Boards of Education so that the task force is not perceived as an assault an the autonomy of our two school systems. I also urge you to provide the task force with specific guidance as to what it should address. We don't want the public response to the task force report to be full of accusations that, "They weren't supposed to take on that issue, or they failed to look at this issue." If you expect an issue to be addressed, put it in the charge to the task force. If it is to be off limits, make that clear. The charge should state whether or not the task force is to make recommendations about a merger. When appointing the task force, please include parents from each school district as members. Parents often see advantages and disadvantages in schools that are not easily discerned from statistics and budgets. The parents appointed to the task force should have experience with elementary, middle, and high school programs. In addition, I believe that you should require the task force to seek public input on the strengths and weaknesses of each system. I am concerned by the suggestion that much of the task force's work will be undertaken by graduate students. As a former overworked graduate student myself, I am well aware of their limited capacity to analyze complex public policy issues. It certainly would be appropriate for graduate students to collect and organize data, but the experts on the task force should undertake the analysis. Leaving the task farce aside, I want to express my support far the proposals to analyze and possibly seek voter approval for a countywide supplemental tax. We face a difficult situation in Orange County with regard to education funding. While the tax base per student in the two districts is roughly the same, the income levels of the taxpayers are different. As a result, raising the tax rate for the Orange County district to the level of Chapel Hill would equalize funding, but it would also cause financial hardship far many County residents. A Countywide supplemental tax could better balance the competing concerns of adequate funding and ability to pay and should be able to generate support from parents in both districts. In closing I want to reiterate my appreciation for your consideration of the public's comments and your efforts to address the concerns of all the citizens of Orange County. I urge you to continue focusing on issues that unite the County rather than on one that divides us. Thank you. Arlene Furman: Please bear with me. I have visual impairments and my reading might be a little slow. Just when I thought the County Commissioners were going to rally to the cause of the Orange County schools, I was sadly disappointed with the proposals presented at the November 11th work session. With the exception of the brief proposal from Moses Carey, the word merger was conspicuously absent from the Commissioners' written statements. Indeed, these plans have abandoned the question of merger altogether. The proposal submitted by Commissioner Jacobs stresses once again greater collaboration between the two school systems. Of course, collaboration was stressed in the 1986 merger plan. But such collaboration, which would require mutual respect and a willingness to cooperate between the two systems, has yet to come to fruition. I do support the auditing of each system. However, I do worry that what may be considered an appropriate expense for Chapel Hill may be considered an extravagance for Orange County. Margaret Brown's proposal puts together an educational task force through UNC. Oddly, though, however, it was the UNC elite who instituted the Chapel Hill district tax 95 years ago. The current task force has already stated that it will not consider the merger scenario. Ironically, the huge social question of school merger, which has terribly divided this community, is too difficult and painful to examine. Could this be because the Commissioners have bent to the pressure and political will of the privileged? Commissioner Alice Gordon so generously solves our problem with a supplemental Countywide district tax set at four cents, which would provide Orange County with half of our 2003 shortfall, yet hold Chapel Hill harmless by allowing it to increase the City district tax as needed to fund any unmet needs. One message that echoes among the proposals is that Orange County children need less and the Chapel Hill children will always, for some reason, need more to achieve academic excellence. And that is exactly the attitude that has divided our community. The Commissioners are sending mixed messages and I ask them, are we really One County? Every child in this entire County should be considered equally whether they aspire to go to Yale or taking the challenges of the family farm. Their educational opportunities should be equal. This will only happen when the County Commissioners recognize and acknowledge that rapid growth in Chapel Hill and the resultant higher revenues from the district tax significantly limit funding to the Orange County schools. Had the County Commissioners been taking care of business by addressing this disparity between these two systems, going back to 1986, our children in Orange County would not have to sit at the back of the educational bus. Collaboration will not fix our funding problems. A Countywide district tax will not fix it either. Indeed, this problem will be fixed only when Orange County students are recognized as equals to their counterparts in Chapel Hill. And all of us here tonight recognize ourselves as citizens of the same County. Thank you. Jack Nestor: Good evening. My name is Jack Nestor and I'm the parent of two children attending Grady Brown Elementary in Hillsborough. Tonight I'd like to express my dismay at the way in which this public discussion of a possible school merger has tarn our County community. And I have been equally disquieted by the realization of how distant or detached City and County sentiments have already grown as revealed by merger discussion, dialogues, and diatribe. We find ourselves tonight recognizing a divided County, a County that has institutionally engendered two distinct cultures with two separate sets of expectations. And the question I'd like to pose to you, the Commissioners, tonight is simply where are we going? For the past several years, the parents and teachers of Orange County have pleaded at budget hearings and argued that repeated under funding of the school budget was hobbling our County school system. These pleas were met with the standard explanation from the Board ar the County Manager that County pupils could receive no mare than the amount provided to Chapel Hill students. But behind this explanation, we always found the Chapel Hill district tax, which afforded our neighbors up to 50°lo more local discretionary funding, and in turn, allowed the Commissioners to meet Chapel Hill's school budget fully year after year. So where are we going? Have we grown comfortable with the notion that Orange County students require less? Do Orange County children require less reading recovery? Do we require narrower arts, athletics, foreign language, and advanced placement programs? Do our teachers really deserve lower salaries and such tepid support? If the very idea of merger is swept from the table, where are we going? Commissioner Cordon's supplemental tax proposal offers no more guaranteed support than the current countywide properly tax. If over the past few years, the Commissioners had gradually increased the countywide property tax, and in turn, lowered the City district tax accordingly, this discussion would never have been necessary, and we wouldn't find this tremendous funding disparity between the two systems. So let's look at that darn City district tax. How and when did it begin? Who implemented it? It was never voted in, as some people believe? Who was excluded from the better school system when it was first implemented? Historically, is it anything that Orange County can be proud of? And can we look at that tax now and say that it serves our community well, and that it deserves to play a role in our future? Is the district tax a tool that serves our democratic ideals, or a trick of power and privilege to sidestep social equality? Perhaps the proposed educational task force could explore the history of the Chapel Hill district tax, since it's been stated that it won't be spending any time examining what a merged school system would look like. It took courage to utter the word "merger" back in January. But to truly address the current disparity, to account for it honestly, and to correct it, will require courage, commitment, and heart. Thanks very much. Joal Hall Broun: Good evening, and as you know, I'm not going to take up my three minutes at all. I am here, not on behalf of the Town of Carrboro, but I am speaking on behalf of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chapter of the NAACP. We take no position on the issue of school merger because we have members who are for the merger of the school system and who are against the merger of the school system. What we do advocate is a quality education for each child no matter where they live, either in the County or in the City district. What we da find, however disfavored, is the use of the example of bussing for integration purposes as something to be said as an advocate against merger. Because in this case the issue is funding and not integration. Whatever funding mechanism you select or structure that achieves the goal of equal funding in providing a quality education for each child, we support that structure as long as it achieves that goal. And that's what we support. Thank you. Lynn Lehmann: I'm speaking tonight as the PTA President at McDougle Middle School in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School district. The PTA and the School Governance Committee at McDougle Middle School have discussed the proposed merger at several of its meetings, and many members have attended the public hearings. We wish to express a consensus opinion supporting the alternatives recommended by Dr. Neil Pederson in his October 9, 2003 letter to the Orange County Commissioners entitled, "Proposed Options to Merger." Dr. Pedersan's letter outlines thoughtful and creative options that will best serve the students, teachers, administrators, and parents of the two systems. Our consensus is aligned with information obtained by the McDougle Middle School PTA where 88% of 257 teachers and parents who responded to a survey did not support merger. And now I'd like to take off my PTA President hat and put on my mom hat with something that just occurred to me as I was driving over here tonight. And as a mom, I have a deep concern with our high school kids driving and being possibly injured in a car accident on longer than necessary routes to school. And as I was coming over here on old 86 in the rain and the dark, I was thinking about our high school drivers, and concluded that this is not a matter of convenience, but of safety. And no matter how efficient our school bus transportation system is, we will still have high school age drivers in cars coming to and from school. And we hope that our kids want to make their school the center of their activities -with sports, and clubs, and band, and chorus, and drama, and dances after school and into the evening. But as much as we talk to our kids about safe driving and teach them and try to model for them, they won't always make goad driving choices. And as the mother of two boys whose brains don't always seems to be able to process danger, I could see that they may be making bad driving choices to speed to school because they're late or speed home from school to make a curfew. And the farther their high school is from home, the more they are at risk. And this is not just Chapel Hill kids speeding down old 86, but also all kids whose schools are not close to them. And for every mile we add to their driving, we increase their chances of an accident. And if merger occurs, this will not only affect the Chapel Hill kids, but the County kids as well as if a massive redistricting process occurs. And I admire your thoughtfulness as Commissioners and new high school placement in the past, and I support equalized funding between the districts, but please think about our high school drivers and the negative affects that merger and an elimination of community high schools would have on the safety of these high school drivers and others who are on the roads with them. Thank you. Rick Kennedy: I'm going to tell you a story. I once related to you my grandfather's aphorism that to learn of a man's true character, watch haw he treats those who can do him no good. We will see soon enough your true character, but first let me tell you a story about a farmer from a small town. I believe it provides an example for all of us. This story is not so much about black and white as it is about finding courage to do what is right. The farmer glanced up from his chores one day to see the chief of police standing on his property. The chief came by to request of the farmer that he join the white citizen's council, which had just been created to obstruct integration. The farmer declined the request. On a second day the farmer again found the chief standing before him. He said no a second time, even though he was the only white man in town not yet a member. On a third occasion, not just the chief, but twenty men with him, confronted the farmer to press him on the issue of membership, but he again declined, and in a diplomatic attempt, he then mentioned his ambivalence about paying the five-dollar membership fee. The men confronting him then stated they would pay the fee for him. At that paint, the farmer pulled out afive-dollar bill and stated that he would flush that five dollars down the toilet before he would ever join. This man held no public office, had no public responsibility, and had nothing to gain from his stand that day. He had, in fact, much to lose, but he stood firm against twenty men because he believed it wasn't the way people ought to go. He truly believed in equality. His antagonists told him that he would come to learn the significance of his refusal. They ostracized him from his hometown. They boycotted his farm and also his seed and fertilizer business. But, in spite of his stand that day, or maybe possibly because of it, his neighbors and customers came back to him little by little as the months went by. Within a few years he was appointed by them to the board of education, and while serving as chairman, he led the charge for merger of city and county schools. He believed in equality of opportunity, and he knew that merger of the two districts would provide it. During this time, the hostility towards him was intense to the point where his property was vandalized, and petty to the paint where the only gas station in town wouldn't even sell him gas. The merger proposal went to a vote in the county, and was defeated, but the farmer, although saddened, was not deterred. He decided that in order to improve the chance of merger and the quality of education in general, he needed more political capital, so he ran for a seat in the state legislature as a way to get it. Although a struggle, he won that seat, and by his first day in office, he saw to it that he was appointed to the education committee. He served as state senator, then governor, and then as President of the United States of America. Last year he earned the Nobel Peace Prize. That town was Plains, Georgia, and that farmer, of course, was Jimmy Carter. He saw back then what so many of us still struggle to see today -artificial boundaries are not accidental, and their consequences are not benign. He had the courage to stand up to the pettiness and hostility of those surrounding him. He fought heart and soul for equality of opportunity. I ask you to follow his example. Find the courage to stand up, as you have never done before. Merge these schools. It will work out. The sky will not fall. If you doubt this, ask Jimmy Carter, or better yet, go to Plains, Georgia. They no longer struggle over merger of city and county schools. They are one, as we should be. Perhaps the liberal bastion of the South could learn a thing or two from a small town in Georgia. Gayane Chambless: I just wanted to thank you for allowing us to come out again tonight and for you to be here to listen to all of us. And I applaud the courage that it has taken to bring this issue back to the table after 17 years. Yet I feel we have not progressed at all, even after much debate. As in 17 years ago, more collaboration was suggested, yet it never resulted in any benefits to the children in the school systems. Here we are again, looking at collaboration as an answer to the problem of disparity between the systems. I appreciated Dr. Halkiotis declaring atone meeting in regards to collaboration and specifically the needs to build an alternative school. He said, "Stop talking about it, just do it." That has been the problem with collaboration -much talk, but no action. And the gap in funding between the two systems continues to grow. Ida not see that collaboration will permanently solve the problems of the disparity in funding and therefore opportunities in the school systems. The proof is in the pudding, and has been for at least 14 years of the last 17 years since collaboration was first recommended in the original merger study. Yet another proposed has been that of a countywide district tax. Unfortunately, the amounts suggested (.04/$100 to raise $1.5 million} only covers one half of the County's unmet needs this year alone. This does not even take into account that the City district tax would remain in place and be allowed to increase when needed, thereby allowing the gap again to widen again and again. This is totally unfair to the children of the County school system, to have only a portion of their budget met year to year, while the City system can raise their district tax to fully meet not only their needs, but many of their expansion items as well. But it is not just the parents of the Orange County school system who agree that this is unfair. The existence of a positive correlation between expenditures and educational opportunity has been recognized in 13 states' highest courts. According to Justice Marshall, "It is an inescapable fact that if one district has mare funds available per pupil than another district, the former will have greater choice in educational planning than will the later." In Rose vs. Council for Better Education, the Supreme Court of Kentucky found that "Students in property poor districts receive inadequate education opportunities as compared to those offered to those students in the more affluent districts." In Abbott vs. Burke, the Supreme Court of New Jersey noted that "all of the evidence of high quality education in the richer suburbs....attests to the role money has in producing it." According to the Supreme Court of Michigan in Milliken vs. Green, "Disparities in expenditures may indeed contribute to disparities in educational programs offered." It is well known among educational policy makers that reliance on local property wealth far funding public schools creates fiscal inequities. Yet there are those who will argue that there is no proof that expenditures correlate with academic achievement. Well, if this is the case, perhaps the County Commissioners could determine that the City district should be funded solely through the City district tax, thereby allowing sufficient funds to finally fully fund the County school system. But according to an article by John Dayton in the Journal of Educational Finance, 19, "Statistical correlations of expenditures and standardized test scores provide limited information about whether expenditures affect educational opportunity. As the Supreme Court of California noted, `Quality cannot be defined wholly in terms of performance on state-wide achievement tests, because such tests do not measure all the benefits and detriments that a child may receive from his educational experience.' If standardized test scores were the only hallmark of quality of educational opportunity, it would make little sense far the wealthiest schools to offer their diverse curricula with courses other than those needed to improve standardized test scores. Achievement and opportunity are not the same thing. Constitutions cannot guarantee equal achievement. Instead, constitutions address equality of treatment and educational opportunity." That is what we ask of you. Please have the courage to give our students an opportunity to achieve what they may be able to achieve. Right now, you never know. Thank you. Tim Godley: We really need to stop meeting like this. This is getting to be a bad habit, and my friends are really starting to worry about me. All kidding aside, I want to take this time to thank Commissioners Gordon, Jacobs, and Brown for listening to the public comment. I was very encouraged at the last Commissioners' work session an the school merger issue. I was extremely impressed that you really heard the public. Much of what we said was heard and reiterated in your individual proposals. I feel that you are trying to negotiate a compromise as a win-win for everybody. You have renewed my faith in the system. I support Commissioner Gordan's proposal, specifically because it is aggressive in trying to correct the funding inequity as soon as possible and it cuts to the chase as it relates to the dollar amounts. Her proposal also outlines steps towards collaboration. I support Commissioner Jacobs' proposal because it supports an educational task force that calls for a vote an a countywide supplemental school tax. I support his proposals because he has came up with a number of ideas on collaboration. I support Commissioner Brown's proposal far an education task farce whose aim would be to preserve and enhance the superior quality of education in both school districts. I have enjoyed listening to Commissioner Halkiotis' colorful commentary. Of course, I do not support Commissioner Corey's proposal for merger, especially in light of all the creative alternatives to merger, nor do I support the boycott. What did the boycott accomplish anyway? I must admit that before all of this started, I could not even name two of the Orange County Commissioners. As you can imagine, that has all changed now. I have learned a lot about the Orange County Commissioners and school merger issues, and armed with this information, don't you know that I'm going to vote in the primary. Thank you. Vicki Hill: I'm an Orange County school parent. And I'm not gaing to be eloquent. I'm just gaing to be short. I've enjoyed coming to these hearings and I appreciate you having these hearings. I've learned a lot. I'm confused by some things. I'm sitting on the fence, and I support my friends in Orange County, because what they say makes sense to me, it sounds like it's based on well-researched information. I do want to say that a separate district tax for Orange County schools is not likely to impact the funding disparity far reasons that have already been presented. I would like to say that a task force made up of educational specialists is worthwhile as a concept. I am concerned about a proposal that it might involve farmer school board members and graduate students. I would like to say that historically a referendum has passed with voters primarily living in the southern part of the County. And based on those voting patterns for bonds, I don't think that it would be reflective of most of the population in northern Orange. I would just like to urge you to continue to find ways for people to unite so that you can get together as parents, and continue to volunteer in our schools, and enjoy our educational system. I do believe that there are some funding inequities and that the children in Orange County schools would welcome the opportunity to have more choices. Thank you. Melissa Holmberg: I have two children in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools. I also work in a nursing care center here in Hillsborough, so I'm very involved in the entire community. I will begin by saying that I do oppose the merger of the schools at this time. I da agree that the funding disparity in Orange County needs to be addressed, but it has been made clear at the past two public hearings, the INFORM meeting, and in Commissioner Gordan's proposal that there are less drastic ways than merger to address this issue -ways that won't create financial hardship for some Orange County residents, especially senior citizens. Therefore, I would like to focus on the transportation issue. The reason this concerns me is that right now my son attends a school approximately five miles from our home. He's on the bus for 45 minutes. If he's pulled to another school even further away, say ten miles, it's logical to double that time to 90 minutes, an hour and a half an the bus. That is unfair to make children sit an a bus for that amount of time. Why else am I so concerned? Well, the further the busses have to travel, the more hazardous zones such as dangerous intersections, blind curves, construction zones, and railroad crossings they will have to travel through, increasing the potential for accidents. And I will tell you a train hitting a bus is horrible. When I was a child, where I lived, there was a terrible accident where about 12 children were killed. And it's not something we want, so we really want to avoid situations like that. Some might say, "If you are so concerned, just drive your children to school." But there are many low-income families in the area where I live in Chapel Hill that do not have that option. Either they don't have access to reliable transportation, or both parents have to work and cannot transport their children to and from school. I don't believe that it's fair to say it's ok for these children to be on the bus for long rides and have their safety compromised any more than my own. Please consider this and study this issue thoroughly and carefully and make sure that by merging the schools, you wouldn't be compromising the safety of hundreds of children. Another aspect is the condition of the busses. My son is on the third school bus since the beginning of the school year. The first two had mechanical problems and so he's on another one now. Last year his bus broke down several times, causing the children to sit on the bus on the side of the road for a long period of time as the parents went crazy with worry. If the systems are merged, the busses will be traveling further, causing more wear and tear, and leading to breakdowns and the need to purchase new busses. As of 2002, a new school bus costs between $50-60,000. Where is this money going to come from? This will need to be factored in when looking at how much a merger will cost and if it is worth it. Also, the affect on air quality will need to be looked at as well. More busses mean more pollution. Also, higher fuel costs. Again, these issues need to be looked at completely before decisions are made. I also believe just as strongly those issues such as affect on curriculum, sports, and other after school activities need to be look at as well. And one important issue that needs to be addressed is the adverse affect on parent involvement in the schools because their children will be in a school further away. Parent involvement is essential to our schools. Parents are reading and writing partners; they provide and participate in the fund raising, which provides much needed items such as books, supplies, and safe playground equipment. Parents also landscape, and if you've ever been to Frank Porter Graham, you know that's a necessity at Frank Porter Graham. If parents cannot conveniently get to school, they are much less likely to participate. And for minority parents, many of whom do not have reliable transportation, it will be impossible. We have tried very hard at Frank Porter Graham to involve Latino families in our school. One reason they are able to participate is that they live close to the school. I would hate to see this effort go to waste because of redistricting due to merger. And let me say, I come from New York, from a big school district. Bigger is not better. Bigger means more bureaucracy, less accessibility for parents, and teachers, and students. So it really isn't better. Please keep that in mind. I also feel that we should look at more ways to cooperate and ways for our two communities to come together. I work in Orange County, I live in Chapel Hill. I have friends in both. And I really think we can work together. And lastly, as a registered voter here in Orange County, I insist that all candidates for County Commissioner take a position on merger via public record before the primary. We as voters have the right to know where our candidates stand on important issues so we can make informed decisions. Thank you. Kelly Monroe Porco: I'm going to get right to the point tonight. Denying equity in school funding is a social justice issue, and discriminatory, and unconstitutional based on states equal protection guarantees. In 1973, during a case entitled San Antonio vs. Rodriguez, Justice Thorogood Marshall stated, "Personal poverty that exists in some school districts may entail much the same social stigma as historically attached to certain racial or ethnic groups. Furthermore, discrimination and the opportunity to learn that is afforded a child must be our standard." As Ms. Chambless already told you, 13 of 17 courts have ruled in favor of Justice Marshall's ruling that a positive correlation between expenditures and educational opportunity exists. Also, I would like to point out that there are several parallels between these court cases and the situation we are now facing. California High Court Priest vs. Serrano 2 disagrees with the argument that we've heard that we will lose local control if we merge and equalize funding. They state, "It is a cruel illusion, which for far being from necessary to promote local control actually deprives the less wealthy district of the option. Spending disparities actually deny local control to poorer schools. Districts that have political clout within a legislature continue to influence the design of school financed formulas. And less powerful districts are forced to use other means to shape the financial system." Another argument against equalized funding -expenditures are only one small part of educational quality. The Wyoming Supreme Court has addressed this issue. They say, "It is nothing more than an illusion to believe that the extensive disparity and financial resources does not relate directly to the quality of education." Another argument -Orange County is property poor and cannot compete with Chapel Hill's district tax. The Georgia Supreme Court recognized the vastly different opportunities afforded rural and City children by ruling. The inequities in the school finance system deny students and property poor districts equal opportunities. Commissioner Jacobs, you'll be interested to know this. The New York High Court further affirmed this ruling in the Board of Education Levittown vs. Niquith (sp?). "We are assuming that there is a significant correlation between amounts of money expended and the quality and quantity of educational opportunity provided." And the idea that money does not equal educational achievement -we've been told by Chapel Hill and been asked far conclusive evidence that mare money would guarantee that our children would perform as well as children in Chapel Hill. The Supreme Court of New Jersey answers this question. "The constitutional answer is that they are entitled to pass or fail with at the least the same amount of money as their competitors. The constitution does not tell them they will get the minimum because that is all they can benefit from." It further Thorogood Marshall's opinion that when a child in an under funded district succeeds, it is to the credit of the child, not the district. In few areas other than education do people sa readily question the promise that the availability of money affects quality? This attitude demonstrates that inequitable systems of funding public education discriminate indirectly in a way that most Americans would find unacceptable if the discrimination were direct. Commissioners, these court cases have done your work for you, in that they have established a precedent for you to affect change and give all Orange County children equal access to educational opportunity. The only way to completely achieve this is merger. Otherwise, Orange County will only be receiving more equal amounts of less. Thank you. John Anderson: I grew up in Chapel Hill and attended the public schools. After going away to college and starting my career, I returned three years ago. My wife and I built a home in Lake Hogan Farms, only one mile from Chapel Hill High School so that our kids would be sure to go to that school. Based on what we've been hearing, if the merger goes through, there's a strong possibility that our kids will be redistricted. This would force our kids to ride a bus for nine miles instead of just one to attend high school. If our kids were redistricted, they would be negatively impacted in several ways. First, longer bus rides. This will lead to less time for homework, after Schaal activities, and sleep. Our older son is a sophomore at Chapel Hill High. He plays multiple sports for the school and is a member of the student government executive committee. We would much rather he attend school only one mile away rather than drive nine miles on old 86. Two, potentially different course offerings. Chapel Hill schools offer more advanced courses than the Orange schools that my son takes advantage of. Third, less parental involvement. My wife volunteers at Chapel Hill High School on Wednesday mornings. It would be much less appealing to her to drive an extra 30 minutes each way to volunteer at Cedar Ridge. It will also be less convenient far me to pick up the kids after practice ar other after school activities. Four, fewer classmates to interact with. Because our neighborhood is in a small pocket that is likely to be bussed up to Cedar Ridge, most of their classmates will live far away from us. It will not be convenient for them to get together or to get to know their other classmates. With the rural buffer, it simply does not make sense to merge the systems and start bussing kids far away from home. Our family will also be negatively impacted by the decline in value of our home. A reputable realtor has told us that the immediate impact of merger, which includes the redistricting of our neighborhood to Cedar Ridge, will be in the 10°~ range. A merger would rob my family of $45,000 in equity. This will make it much more difficult for me to afford to send my kids to college, as I'm planning to use an equity line to finance this. This makes me very angry, and I'm sure it would make you feel the same way. The problem I see is inequitable funding between the two school systems. In my opinion, merger is not the first or best solution to this situation. I've got two solutions. First, figure out a way to provide equitable funding for both school systems without merger. Second, you've heard Neil Pederson's proposal -increased collaboration between the two school systems. Perhaps magnet schools or programs such as an international baccalaureate program could be instituted that would be open to qualified students in both school districts. If after five to ten years of equitable funding there are real differences, then consider merger at that time. But promise not to redistrict any kids from either district far a reasonable period of time, maybe five to ten years. That would take the sting out of a merger. Perhaps during that five or ten year period, magnet programs put in place will eliminate the need to redistrict entirely as students will voluntarily elect to attend those programs. Or perhaps new schools will be built between Hillsborough and Chapel Hill, which will remove the long bussing problem. In my mind, merger should not be our first choice. The overwhelming majority of residents in both school districts do not want merger. They are, however, agreeable to equitable funding. The fact that we have a rural buffer zone, which would lead to long senseless bussing, makes merger the wrong solution at this time. I hope you all agree. Thank you. Rick Chambless: Good evening, it's been a long day, so I'm going to be brief as well. I'd like to start by thanking the County Commissioners for the opportunity to express my opinion on this extremely sensitive subject. My name is Rick Chambless, and I'm a native of Orange County, a product of the Chapel Hill-Carrbaro City school system, and a local businessman in Chapel Hill. Currently, my wife and I reside in Hillsborough and my son attends A. L. Stanback Middle School. I applaud Commissioner Carey for bringing the issue of disparity in opportunities and funding between the two systems forward for public discussion, with an eye toward permanently eliminating the inequities between the two districts. By doing so, you jumpstarted the discussion, which has lain dormant for 17 years when this issue was last visited. At the time, the report suggested that merger was not necessary in 1986, but it may be in the future, and the County should work towards greater collaboration between the two systems and elimination of the funding gap. Fast forward to 2003, the funding gap has risen to the paint where the Orange school district is being funded at 85°~ of its requested budget, while the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district is fully funded. Collaboration across district boundaries has been discussed, yet rarely acted upon. The recent call for merger has created numerous plans from both districts to fix the problem without merger. Mast of these plans rely on increased collaboration, perhaps an Orange district tax, or a small increase in the countywide property tax. Worthwhile alternatives. I question how realistic they actually are. I am very concerned, for example, that once merger is off the front pages, much of the impetus for voluntary collaboration will die by the wayside just as it did 17 years ago. Given the makeup of the Orange district electorate and the Orange district school board, I seriously doubt the viability of a separate district tax ever being enacted. The four-cent per hundred property tax increase will only account for 50°~ of the current funding gap between what the Orange district is asking. Depending on your point of view, this brings us right back to the consideration of merger. I was in first grade during the last school merger in this County, and yes it was a painful experience for many as change can often be painful. But I don't think there's a person here today who would argue that it was a bad merger since it struck down a system, which was so-called separate but equal, although in reality it was truly unequal. Today we have two separate systems in our community -separated not by race, but by opportunity and socioeconomic status. I ask you, the Board of Commissioners, to have the courage and the leadership to erase the inequity and opportunity in funding for our County's children -both permanently and irrevocably. And in my opinion the only realistic viable way to do sa is by a merger. Thank you. Kate Faherty: I would like to join those who came before to congratulate you on the courage that it took to bring this before the County. It's a very sensitive issue, and there have been a lot of fault lines and a lot of fears. I am resident of Hillsborough, and I strongly support merger. I think that it's the only fair thing to do for the citizens. We are one County; we should have one school system. I think that bigger sometimes is better. It doesn't have to be huge, but in any event, it's really too late for the people of Chapel Hill-Carrboro to worry about that because Chapel Hill-Carrboro is growing fairly rapidly all the time. New schools have to be built, land identified for the new schools. So they are getting bigger anyway and have no way to control that except to prevent people from moving into their district, which is impossible and in fact the neighborhoods are being built just as fast as possible. So, in a sense, that is a moot issue. I feel that what I've heard is the greatest fear is the fear of travel, of bussing. And I wonder if there's any way, if we are able to came to the point of merger, that one of the first things that's done before we get there is to allay some of these fears, which in same way seem to me to be like a red flag in front of a bull. I think some of them are quite unrealistic and in fact matters of bussing seem to have been raised as a way to get people to be very emotional about this subject, when perhaps in fact, the actual relocation and redistricting could be kept to a very great minimum. As a matter of fact, it seems like they are always building schools in Chapel Hill-Carrboro and redistricting to the great distress of the citizenry all the time. So I doubt that even without merger that people in this room from Chapel Hill and Carrboro would avoid redistricting in the future for their children anyway. Alas, because nobody likes to have change and have their children to travel. But I do think that that's something that can be solved, can be addressed, and can be helped. And I urge the Commissioners to take this step. I believe it's the only fair way for all of our children in this County. And after all, we are one County. And I thank you for the opportunity tonight. Anne Lindsey: I'm an Orange County schools' parent. I have spoken in both of the previous hearings in support of merger. I applaud Moses Carey for his courageous efforts on behalf of Orange County children as indicated by the title of his proposal for Ensuring That Every School Age Child in Orange County Has an Equal Opportunity To Reach His/Her Full Educational Potential. That says it all. Tonight, however, I would like to read a statement from an Orange County parent who could not be here. James Heninger could not be here tonight, and this is his statement: "Many speakers have decried the lack of democracy demonstrated in the County Commissioners' merger research process. The charge of undemocratic process is one that should be addressed. The United States is not simply a democracy. It is a liberal representative democracy. Mostly, we do not directly vote on issues. We elect representatives who often must balance the desires of constituencies with personal moral conviction. Furthermore, we have the addition of codified civil liberties derived in our case from the Bill of Rights. These civil liberties protect the minority, not only from the tyranny, but also from the abuse, and the intimidation, and the neglect of the majority. Hence, we have a system of checks and balances. The most obvious example of this protection is the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took this nation four score and seven years to abolish slavery. It took another century to desegregate. Obviously, the process can sometimes take far too long, and when it does, the pain of the change lingers. In July of 1968, a single judge mandated that the segregated school districts in western North Carolina would be merged when school began at the end of August. After 35 years, desegregation remains an uncomfortable subject for many. God left the Israelites in the wilderness far 4Q years until those whose minds were molded in the old ways had been replaced by a new generation. I think it will take us longer. In the past century, many laws and regulations have been enacted to discriminate against and curtail the rights of immigrants. The checks and balances of civil rights have resurfaced each time to countermand the abuses of the majority and even the government. Today, the U. S. Government has designed a dual set of civil liberties -one for citizens and another for immigrants. We wait to see how this plays out. In our education community, the minority are the parents of Orange County school children. We are dealing with a simple law that has deep roots in civil liberties. That law states that if a County has more than one school district, each must be funded equally on a per-pupil basis. If one is cognizant of American history, it takes little imagination to understand why this law in the genre of civil rights. Because this issue is about both children and taxes, it is unsurprising that emotions are running high. Unfortunately, the reaction of some Chapel Hill-Carrboro speakers and writers, once merely negligent of the problems the special district tax placed upon the County system, has escalated to intimidation, and sometimes abuse. Rising as a majority to flaunt numerical superiority has been an implied intimidation directed at both County parents and Commissioners. To imply that sharing a school system with County children would harm a Town child's academic future is insultingly abusive. This does not become our community. Thank you." H. Jiang: My family lives in this democratic country of Asian Americans. I first lived in Durham, and then I maned to Chapel Hill. They call this a free country; I can choose where I live. Careful planning and analysis will maximize the benefits and minimize the risks. Otherwise, it will hurt every student. In conclusion, you are elected to represent us. Please do not make a decision, which will hurt this area and the future of our students. Thank you. Julia Sendor: I am the Secretary for the East Chapel Hill High Student Government. Ashley Pendergrass: I'm the Treasurer for the East Chapel Hill High Student Government. Julia Sendor: And we want to make the East Chapel Hill High voice known. We're going to be presenting two things, and one is a survey. We passed out surveys to everyone in the school and we got about three-quarters of them back, but it's representative because each class was like a homeroom, so it's all different grades, all different types of people. Ashley Pendergrass: The survey found that 90.2% of the students who had an opinion about the proposed merger were opposed to it. And of all the students polled, 36.4°rb felt that they did not have enough information to make a decision. Julia Sendor: And then the student government also passed a bill to represent the entire school's feelings. It's not an incredibly specific bill. It's partially based on the fact that aver a third of the students did not have enough information to make an opinion, or felt they didn't. But the bill is as follows; it was passed on November 4cn Whereas, the Orange County Commissioners have proposed merging the Chapel Hill- Carrboro City Schools and the Orange County Schools effective as early as July 1, 2005; Whereas, the merger would impact taxation, course offerings, funding, school assignments, and administration for both districts; Whereas, the merger, should it pass, would have a profound impact on the size and identities of both districts; Whereas, many Chapel Hill-Carrboro City school system and Orange County school system residents have expressed strong feelings of disapproval for the merger; Whereas, state law mandates that only the five County Commissioners can decide whether or not to pass the merger and that the merger cannot be decided by referendum; Whereas, the County Commissioners were not elected on a platform concerning the proposed merger; Whereas, the residents wham the merger affects therefore have na voting power concerning this matter; Be it resolved that the Student Government of East Chapel Hill High School, representing the students of East Chapel Hill High School, opposes the state law against referendum, and encourages the Commissioners to rely on public opinion when making their decision about the proposed merger. Susan Houck: I have some reading material since it looks like we'll get out of here relatively early. I'd just like to say that I believe that merger is the only proposal that will solve the funding inequity and provide equal opportunity for our children, all the children in Orange County. As far as collaboration and task force, to me they seem like code words for delay. We heard both of these phrases used 17 years ago, and look where it's gotten us. Our inequity has grown from less than 5% to 34%. And the phrase "task force". With my experience, task forces generally accomplish few tasks and they have more feeling of stagnation than force and action. I think merger is the right thing to do and I think we should just go ahead and do it. Steve Benjamin: We've heard a lot of talk about political courage. It seems to me that based on what we've heard tonight, moving ahead with any talk of a merger at this point is not political courage, it's contempt for citizens and disregard for what most people are saying. Let me talk about a couple of points. The first one is this so-called funding inequality. There is not a funding inequality; there is a funding difference. The issue is that the Orange County district is not paying the taxes that Chapel Hill-Carrboro is paying. That's the issue on the table. It seems to me it is how to increase the funding and how the residents of Orange County district want to increase that funding to a level that they feel is sufficient. All the rest of the discussion of merger and consolidation and whatever, funding is the issue that should be addressed and it should be focused on. The second paint is the Chapel Hill and Carrboro system. I've really heard nothing in any of these discussions from a marketing standpoint, and the question is what's the benefit for Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system? I've heard none. I've heard discussions that the tax rate would stay the same. So we ga through all of this, all of the discussions, all of the debates. Where is the benefit to the students and the parents and all the people within Chapel Hill-Carrboro? I've heard no discussion on that. Third point is in the proposals. Let me speak about Commissioner Cordon's proposal. I like the idea that this is actually an idea to ask the citizens to vote on a proposal and for a tax change. That, I think, is very positive. The task forces, now we're talking about additional study. We've been at this for about a year. Additional study, bringing in consultants, we're not going to be paying for consultants. I'm not sure that's going to help, and particularly if that's a back way in to removing the word "merger" and talking about consolidation. It's clear that this combination idea or merger idea is not a consensus. Finally, on Commissioner Carey's proposal, I think the voice of the people have been heard particularly here tonight. The lack of support, I think it's definite for the idea of merger. And I think that we ought to stop that process and put this discussion behind us and move on to the funding that the Orange County district needs to have in order to bring the funding back up for their students. That's the issue. Leslie Lee: I'm here representing the Mary Scroggs Elementary School Parent Advocacy Committee. Based on a recent survey of our school community, the Scroggs Parent Advocacy Committee opposes merger of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County school systems at this time as a solution to the current funding disparity, and opposes Commissioner Corey's proposal to hold a merger vote this coming February. We do, however, support Commissioners Brown and Jacobs' proposal to create an Educational Excellence Task Force to review the operations of each school system with the goal of increasing cooperation between the two systems and the cost-efficiency of each. But we are concerned about the Central Administrative office reflecting a first step towards and eventual merger or at the very least, an unnecessary building expense. Likewise, we are concerned about the proposed joint preschool program and the transportation issues such a facility would present for the districts andlor families. Finally, the Parent Advocacy Committee support Commissioners Jacobs' and Cordon's proposals to determine whether voters wish to implement a Countywide supplemental tax as an immediate step towards increasing funds for the Orange County schools. I would also like to say something personally and not as a representative of the Scroggs PAC. And that is that I feel that sometimes there seems to be a lack of perspective in this discussion. And I particularly take exception to the phrases of civil liberties and social injustice. I grew up in a third world country. I've seen real social injustice and I've seen real poverty, and I've seen rights denied. And I feel that nobody is denying anybody an education, and in fact, most students in this County receive a good education. And I don't think there is a social injustice. I think that lack of shelter, or food, or medication to people in third world countries or poor towns is a social injustice. But to have a discussion about two school systems that are at the top of the State in terms of funding doesn't seem to me to be an issue of social injustice. All these cases that have been referred to us about Supreme Court decisions, I wonder were they dealing with two school systems that are by all accounts highly funded, or were they dealing with situations that were truly unequal. And finally, I'd like to say that I'm tired of being insulted. I'm tired of being told that I'm elitist, that I'm a segregationist, that I'm racist, that I'm condescending and arrogant and prejudiced by people who don't know me; who don't know any of my neighbors. I have not heard anybody in Chapel Hill who would deny Orange County additional funding. So I want this discussion to take on a different tone. And maybe collaboration is not the solution, but I think that increased funding may well be, and maybe then we could probably discuss merger as somebody else has suggested. Adrian Halpern: I have been a Chapel Hill resident for 25 years. As one who lived through the enforced bussing of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system, I can testify that the social engineering behind that project had greatly disruptive results, turning an educational system that had pockets of excellence into one that became uniformly mediocre. I fear the same thing will happen to the Chapel Hill school system, which has been acclaimed as one of the best in our country. What make schools and school systems great are, first of all, concerned parents -parents who encourage their children to learn and to assist and support teachers in their work. The primary reason why the Chapel Hill schools are so excellent is because Chapel Hill is an academic community where a high percentage of parents have been willing to devote huge amounts of their time encouraging their children's educational endeavors and where the rest of the community has supported this. As a clear indicator of their concern, Chapel Hill residents have long been willing to shoulder the burden of much higher taxes than those in Orange County to help ensure that their children have a superior school infrastructure and an environment that welcomes innovative, effective teachers and provides teachers with superior tools to carry out their missions. A merger of Chapel Hill and Orange County's school systems would be fundamentally unfair to the Chapel Hill community, which has long shouldered the burden of much higher taxes. By requiring Chapel Hill to dilute its school system's resources by merging it with a system that has historically not been as preoccupied with its educational mission, would be an injustice to Chapel Hill residents. It has been suggested that in the event of merger, Orange County taxes will go up in the future to equal those of Chapel Hill, but that is insufficient. In the event of merger, the fair and equitable thing would be to also levy a special school tax assessment on Orange County residents to help make up for the deficient resources devoted to their schools over the past couple of decades. A reasonable proposal for a special school tax assessment is to calculate the disparity in school related taxes between Orange County and Chapel Hill over say the past 20-25 years, and in addition to future increases in Orange County taxes, levy aone-time special tax assessment on Orange County residents to make up for the historical shortfall in their education funding. In the event of merger, to not make such aone-time special tax assessment on Orange County residents will allow them to get a free ride an the backs of Chapel Hill taxpayers. In conclusion, I say no to this quick fix merger idea, and yes to Orange County residents learning from the Chapel Hill example of what must be done over time to improve their children's education. Nicole Lyght: My name is Nicole Lyght and this is my mother Colleen Rogers. I am a sophomore at Chapel Hill High School. From, I think it was in second grade, I was in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City school system, and then I moved down to Hillsborough and I was there until about ninth grade, and then I came back to the Chapel Hill school district. The differences I noticed between the two school districts are basically the grading. Many students from Chapel Hill High have complained about their grades being bad because they feel that the curriculum or the things that they're supposed to study are based upon college-like material and not high school material. And in Orange High, no student ever complained about that. Yau know, you get the regular complaints about their grades being bad, but not the complaints about it being off topic or whatever. And I feel that if we do the merger or whatever, that the school systems will have the same grading, the same curriculum, the same studies, and they'll be able to prepare themselves, if they do switch high schools, they'll be able to prepare themselves for what's at that high school because they've studied it in their other high school. Colleen Rogers: I share both Chapel Hill and the County. I was barn and raised in Chapel Hill, I attended Chapel Hill schools under a segregated school system, I moved back here five years ago, and I live in the County. As I grew up, I shared the County with my grandparents in both Chatham and Orange County. 5o I can enjoy both. My fondest memories are of my days with my grandparents in the County. You know, in moving back, when I looked in the paper and I saw that they were thinking of merging the two school systems, well I was overjoyed. You know, as she was saying, Nicole went to Orange High School. Chapel Hill High School is two and a half miles from my house. So I can really understand the parents in Chapel Hill concerned with their children driving eight to ten miles to school because that's what had to happen with her. So I still feel that the merging of the schools has to make it better in many ways other than just the schools because, obviously transportation will have to improve, and I think that the Chapel Hill-Carrboro students knowing the Orange County students and the exchange could be good for both communities. And, you know, that's all I have to say. I think merger would be goad, and I do think that my years were great. Naw that I'm back, I have been very active in volunteering at Chapel Hill High School and stuff with the schools, and I truly feel that the merging of the schools would be good for all of us. Jim Rabinowitz: I have a unique perspective on the issue of Orange County having two school districts. I've lived in both districts - moving only a short distance three years ago to go from the Orange County school district, where I lived for 15 years, to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district. From personal experience, I can say the boundary between the school districts is arbitrary, as are many boundaries in our local community. For example, the boundary between Chapel Hill and Carrboro, or the boundary that put part of Chapel Hill in Durham County. Having said that, I must also say that people have made life decisions based on the boundary between the school districts, and any change must result from careful consideration and community deliberation. Unfortunately, the atmosphere related to this issue has became so enflamed over the past few weeks that achieving community consensus through deliberation will take a great deal of effort and a great deal of time. And therefore, I am against any irrevocable move towards merger at this time. I also recognize that merger may be the best plan in the future, so we should work to achieve the communal atmosphere where it seems natural and is therefore easier. I know of other Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district parents who feel the way I do. The immediate problem of insufficient funding to the Orange County school district should be addressed. There is no way to solve this problem without an increase in taxation, with or without merger. In addition to the obvious solution to the problem - an Orange County school district tax, I have previously proposed in another one of these hearings, is at least a temporary solution to this problem that I feel is doable. Do not consider the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district when considering the budget for the Orange County schools. Then fund the Chapel Hill- Carrboro school district an equal amount, which you must do. But, then the Chapel Hill- Carrboro school district can adjust their tax accordingly, and perhaps eventually the tax will disappear. As the funding in the districts becomes more equivalent, the atmosphere for merger also may improve. It has been stated that because the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district is growing more rapidly, and the funding for this growth is coming from the countywide funds, the Chapel Hill school district is siphoning funding from the Orange County school district. I have thought about this for a while, and there really is an indication that developers are taking advantage of all current residents of Orange County. County impact fees should be raised and hopefully graduated. I understand that the Commission is working toward graduated impact fees. I congratulate you for doing that and urge you to continue that effort. In conclusion, it is clear to me that any solution to the problem of the Orange County school district would require an increase in taxes. It has been said that merger is the only permanent solution, but I would like to paint out that the excellent funding for schools that we enjoy now is not permanent, with or without merger. Libbie Hough: I'm a parent of two children in Orange County schools. I don't have anything incredibly profound to say this evening, but I will ga through a couple of phrases that I think would perhaps provide some sound bytes and things that we can all take home with us. So what is the problem that we have? The problem is that there is a funding disparity between the County and City systems that grows every year, and with it, so does the inability of the children of rural Orange County to achieve their full potential. So what does this mean? Children in rural Orange County have access to fewer resources -reading recovery, AG services, foreign language options, AP courses, etc. -than children in the Chapel Hill system. Teachers are compensated less for doing the same jab as their City counterparts. Many of our buildings are substandard places in which to teach, learn, and play. Sa how did we get there? We've allowed the continued existence of the Chapel Hill district tax, which creates an inevitable and artificial funding cap far the Orange County schools. We've supported wise land use policies that enhance our quality of life and maintain our rural character, but unintentionally limit growth of the healthy tax base in the County and the potential of a separate school system. We've accepted unchecked development within the City's district boundaries, creating a need for too many school buildings. We will help pay for these buildings with our taxes if band packages pass. Our children will have no access to these buildings ar the opportunities that they hold. We've contributed to the health of the local economy, but we do not share equally in the wealth that we help generate. We've unwittingly condoned the existence of two separate and inequitably funded school systems for decades; a framework that results in reduced educational and lifelong opportunities for our children. So what can we do to fix this problem? We can demand along-term Countywide approach to education, ensuring that all children in our County, na matter where they live, have the opportunity to access resources they need and deserve. We can insist that tax dollars allocated for task forces ar collaboration be used instead to craft a merger plan and perhaps even some consultant to help us work through the divisive issues that we've created and create a unified school system in Orange County -one that draws upon the strengths of both current systems and increases opportunity for all. But we must all denounce the status quo. This disparity will only get worse as time goes by. No Orange County school district tax, no collaborative initiatives, na Countywide supplemental tax can fix this problem. Merger will dismantle this inherently discriminatory system and will assure that all children, not just those who are privileged enough to live in the Chapel Hill school district, to have the opportunities that they sa richly deserve. As always, I will leave this evening with mare questions about our future. How will we justify yet another year of less than adequate funding for our system, while Chapel Hill is held harmless? How will we convince those Orange County residents who have voted for previous bond packages to do so again? We may have to start asking ourselves, "What's in it for us?" How can we justify to our community that the Orange County schools will make painful choices about which staff members and programs to retain while Chapel Hill can continue to expand its programming? Lastly, haw can anyone justify denying opportunity to all the children in our County? Genie Kamives: I'm sorry to keep you up late, and forgive my voice. But as an Orange County parent, I went to my children's winter concert tonight, so I had to sign up late this evening. And I also have to admit to getting very angry at assertions that the feelings of the Orange County schools are due to uninvolved parents, I guess, like myself. It has been said at previous public hearings that school funding does not correlate with the educational opportunity. That being the case, had I been here earlier, I had planned to ask each of you from the City school district who agree with that statement to stand up. Then I had planned to ask them to keep standing if they were willing to give up that special district tax that provides that additional funding for their children's schools. I seriously doubt that I would have seen anybody left standing. Although not unanimous, the majority of the high court opinions concerning the issues of funding public systems include that better funding is related to the level of educational opportunity provided by the schools. According to John Dayton in "Correlating Expenditures and Educational Opportunity in School Funding Litigation: The Judicial Perspective"; "The Supreme Court of New Jersey in Abbott vs. Buke noted `all of the evidence of high quality education in the richer suburbs on this record attests to the role of money in producing it.' The court further supported its conclusion regarding the significance of money to educational opportunity observing that the decisions made by school officials 'are based on the premise that what money buys affects the quality of education.' The court Hated that the conventional wisdom that money affects quality `is Hat just for laypersons, it is the fundamental premise of decision-making by those in charge of education in the districts and in the state.' "According to the Supreme Court of California: `Quality cannot be defined wholly in terms of performance on state-wide achievement tests because such tests da not measure all the benefits and detriments that a child may receive from his educational experience.' If standardized test scores were the only hallmark of quality educational opportunity, it would make little sense for the wealthiest schools to offer their diverse curricula with courses other than those needed to improve standardized test scores. Achievement and opportunity are not the same thing. Constitutions cannot guarantee equal achievement. Instead, constitutions address equality of treatment and educational opportunity." To those that believe the problem in the County district is not how much money, but how the money is spent, Dayton offers the following: "If we had reached the level of diminishing returns and wasted expenditures in our poorest schools, one might question why wealthier schools have continued to spend many times the amount of money poorer schools were deemed to require to provide appropriate educational opportunities far their children. Absent evidence of gross mismanagement in poorer schools, it could be concluded that either educational opportunities were unequal, or that wealthy districts were wasting substantial amounts of money." Since the last public hearing, one Commissioner has proposed that a countywide school tax be instituted at four cents per hundred-dollar valuation, which would provide an additional $1.5 million to the County district for the coming year. This would provide for only one half of last year's unmet needs. Yet the City district tax, which would remain in place, would be allowed to increase almost unrestrained. I find this solution woefully inadequate and completely unfair to the County district children. Others have proposed that we appoint a task force to study collaboration between the districts. It is clear to me, reference the merger study from 1986, that collaboration is a buzzword for inaction. While collaboration was discussed and abandoned, the funding disparity between the districts has increased substantially. Collaboration is needed to address issues such as alternative schools. However, foreign language is a State mandate for elementary schools, yet we in Orange County have no curriculum. My children have learned most of their Spanish from their friends for whom this is their native language. Collaboration won't fix that or class size disparities, and it will not equalize the salaries of our underpaid teachers. Merger remains the only mechanism that will permanently fix this funding problem. I challenge any of you to offer another proposal that provides equity and educational opportunity to all of Orange County schools and children and cannot be undone in the shifting political winds of the future. Thank you. Gloria Foley: Democracy has become a wonderful system to me, and over the last couple of months I've grown to really appreciate it and love it for its entirety. It's a system, and as I read the four proposals before us, I find them both interesting and disturbing. Commissioner Brawn's proposal asks for a task force "ta increase the accomplishments of underachieving students and enrich all programming and preserve academically gifted curriculum." I find this curious because I have a deep respect for Dr. Friday and Dr. Grimay. The Chapel Hill schools worked with Dr. Grimay to find a better middle school curriculum and to establish the UNC wing to Smith Middle School. And I wondered, as I read this, how much or how often you read the Chapel Hill report on minority student achievement. Commissioner Jacobs' proposal also asks for a task force and asks for a joint early childhood program. If this joint childhood program replaces the preschool program in the current school systems, I wander if you realize that the transition between pre-K to elementary is very critical. Having pre-K programs in elementary schools where the students will attend makes the transition for the fragile learner successful and easier. What parts of Brown and Jacobs' proposals run the fine line of the statutory responsibilities of the school board? Defining educational policy is why school board members are elected. That's how our democracy works. Commissioner Corey's proposal states, "No student in either system will be involuntarily transferred within three years of a merger date." I again encourage you to read the studies from the UNC re-segregation of schools, where merged systems suddenly had imbalanced schools within a merged system. Commissioner Gordon's proposal is the only proposal that allows citizens to make a choice in this process. This proposal allows Orange County citizens to vote for or against a tax. It allows them to define how much the tax is. Voting is a beautiful and wonderful part of our democracy, even when you don't like the result. If collaboration is important, and it is, then let's have a complete collaboration - a collaboration between the County Commissioners and both school boards. I encourage you again to begin to look at facts and eliminate the rhetoric, no matter haw colorful. I encourage you to look at what was proposed a year ago, and that is working with Philip Boyle with the Institute of Government to establish a collaborative model for constructive communication. Our democracy deserves better than the discourse that has occurred over the last several months - a discourse that has created barrier between neighbors. Our democracy expects publicly elected officials to build bridges between neighbors. Our democracy deserves a complete study of merger to answer the questions up front. Our democracy deserves the equal funding defined in the 1986 report. Our democracy deserves real collaboration from the statutory perspectives of bath the school board and the Orange County Commissioners. Our democracy deserves that the citizens have some type of voting choice in this process. Our democracy deserves that bridges are to be built to find solutions and to eliminate negative discourse. Jeff Song: We live in Chapel Hill. My family has a deep concern about merger. I have two kids in Chapel Hill. One is in Chapel Hill High and he goes to the band in the morning and needs to ride to school every day. And the younger one is at Seawell Elementary and is staying after school. My wife and I are working parents. We work in Raleigh and we spend an extra two hours an the road every day. I have to drop the kids off at school and I come home late around 6:30-7:00 p.m. My wife has to leave at 7:00 a.m. and drive to Raleigh and then came back at 4:30 p.m. in order to pick up kids from school. The merger of the systems will put pressure on our day's schedule. We live an the north side of the Chapel Hill line, and according to the plan, the kids may have to shift far away from home. That means extra hours for kids riding in the car or bus, and the hours could well be used far after school activities, for community services. Then our schedule will become very tight. We may have to leave at 6:00 or 6:30, and that will put extra stress on our family and the kids may not be able to take on any extra activities. Why did we settle in Chapel Hill and work in Raleigh? Because of the stability of the school district, and Wake County doesn't have it and Durham doesn't have it. In Wake County even if you live on the next street to the school, you may not be able to attend the school. I hope you won't put kids in that situation. Choices and competitions -when you go to Wal-Mart, you want to have more choices. Why do you want to take away the choices for us for the public schools? We like the business of the competition since we believe that's a good thing and will benefit the consumers. I believe that keeping the two public school systems will keep the competition and make the schools better instead of making it worse. Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools have made their name recognized in the nation. I believe all of you are proud of it. Please don't destroy it. Kate Fleishman: I didn't really prepare anything since I thought I would be too afraid to speak. I have a North Carolina education, I went to school in the 70's, and I know the atrocious -the good, the bad, and the ugly - of public education. I have a daughter and son-in-law who graduated from Chapel Hill. They think they got excellent educations, and I don't want to take anything at all away from Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools. I have younger children who go to County schools and I think that New Hope Elementary is an excellent school. I work as a fundraiser for New Hope School, and we cut out box tops. And every quarter counts and every penny in the penny drive counts. So I can't help but feel resentful when I think of the thousands of dollars more that the Chapel Hill schools have. I outfit myself at the PTA thrift shop, and I started to resent the money that I spend at the thrift shop going to the Chapel Hill schools. There's been a lot of criticism about the boycott and how silly that is. But as an Orange County parent, I started to think about where I buy my groceries. These pennies go into a school and I would like it to benefit my children. A few years ago there was a big crisis about the funding, and I was in this courthouse while children cried about the possibility about losing their specials, their art, their P. E. There's been a lot of statistics about the amount of money and the quality of education. I think that of all the things that make a school wonderful are the people who are in the school that make the school wonderful, and I don't think that the superintendent has much affect. For a long time, we didn't even have a superintendent and I didn't even notice the difference. The teachers and the principals are the people that I am in contact with and they have been excellent in my school. I don't know why people are so afraid of this merger that somehow it's going to ruin everything. I've had children in both districts. I'm a merger. I'm a merger of Chapel Hill. I live in Chapel Hill and Orange County and I don't understand why there's so much fear of that. Mr. Carey, I really think you've made a bold step and I would like for the County to be united and I would like to not have to think about if I spend a penny on this side of the border or on this side of the border that it's going to make a difference to children. All children deserve it. If I spend my money at New Hope Commons, I help the children in Durham. All the children deserve the same money. Money matters. Thank you. Jian Li: My name is Jian Li. I come from Chapel Hill City, and I think I can represent about ten families of my neighbors. The single most compelling reason that drives me to stand here to talk to the respected Commissioners and fellow residents of this great place is it seems like the issue is access of money. Who's money do the kids access? Your kids access your money and my kids access my money. It seems the logic by some of the pro-merger people is that there is something wrong with the City parents willing to pay more money to the City school district. Sa it becomes a social issue, an injustice issue. Don't forget, your kids access your money and you need to be willing to pay for your school district. With the confusion of why there is mare money in the City because the City parents are willing to pay more money leads to the merger. I called Commissioner Moses Carey and I tried to let you convince me what you're proposing along this question. And during the phone call you kept debating my question and accused me that you won't be able to convince me because I'm already decided. Actually, I don't really mind merging the two school districts, but it seems the reasoning is wrong to go through the merger. Certainly in the short run, it's going to cause some inconvenience to especially the City parents, or the parents in the City school district. In the long run, yes, I agree with a lot of the County parents. The sky is not falling. And in the long run, we're all going to be ok. But, please don't forget we do have differences. In the conversation with Mr. Carey, you asked me the difference; I wasn't able to answer your question because I was not prepared to answer the question. Now I know there is a lot of difference. One of the big differences seems the parents in the City are willing to pay more money. I'm not sure about the County parents. But based on the past record, heard, in the recent past, a bond was defeated six to one in the County. To me, my impression about the County is parents are not willing to pay more money to their school district. So that's one difference. And that's a big difference. If you merge them, it's going to cause a lot of trouble because how are we going to vote to give more support to our school district? It's going to jam everybody together. We want be able to support our individual needs. And fundamentally, I support smaller districts. And your definition of size of school district, of the separate, is too small. And I think right now we have the right size, and the way it is, is good. I am really opposed to merge into a bigger school district because there's more bureaucracy and there's more overhead. So I highly recommend that people who claim this is a civil rights injustice, I want to ask you to stop high-jacking the idea of civil rights and forcing everybody to go along with you. And stop doing that please. We all respect the idea of civil rights, but don't highjack the idea. Thank you. David Laudicina: I live in Bingham Township, that's in southwest Orange County. Lots of people up here have talked about driving nine miles or driving their kids 45 minutes or more. If my child went to a public school, she would have to drive nine miles. There are lots of kids out there that have to ride over 60 minutes now. I take issue with those people's willingness to put the safety of those children on the line. Currently, we have a system; it's messed up. The operating costs are separate. The building costs are put together. Whatever you do, either merge them or separate them. But if you keep them separate, separate it all. Let us pay for the buildings that we have access ta. I'm tired of being disenfranchised on these bond votes. I'm tired of paying for buildings that are right around the corner from me, I pay for them, yet I can't use them; I'm excluded from using them. I don't want to be disenfranchised with this countywide tax thing, and that's what's going to happen. I'm just tired of it. Either put it together or separate it all out. Jim Sorgy: I'm a Chapel Hill resident. As you can tell, I'm against merger. But after this evening, you know, I don't think the process is appropriate. You don't have appropriate facts and information to make a good decision. You need to make sure that what's in the best interest of the citizens of Orange County, the total of Orange County, is protected. Let's start quickly and try and end some of this disparity between the two systems. Bring the Orange County system up closer to the Chapel Hill system. It's much easier, and it's much easier to throw this to the people and say, "these systems are much more equal than they are today." We can see that it's not going to disrupt the Chapel Hill schools that pride themselves that they're one of the best in the country. We don't want these kids over here to not have the opportunities that the kids in the Chapel Hill schools have. Let's find the money, bring them up closer to the Chapel Hill schools, fund the collaboration between the two systems so that instead of throwing some task force of disinterested folks together, there's money there so these people can get something done. And put the programming in the Orange County schools so that they can come up closer to the Chapel Hill City schools and then talk about merger. And then you don't scare the hell out of people. Brad Walters: I'm an Orange County resident. I don't have any children in the school system, so I don't have any fish to fry on that score. I'm wearing an opposition to the merger tag, and it's pretty clear to me that equal funding is appropriate. It's still not clear to me that a merger is the only way to do that. I personally was not educated in North Carolina, but I was educated in the local school system. And I don't think bigger is better. I really do believe in students going to close, nearby schools. I don't like the idea of shipping children around. And I do think you have, as the previous speaker mentioned, an obligation to the parents and children in Chapel Hill that if you do something, you need not detract from an outstanding school system that's a big success. The job, and it's a big one, is to bring Orange County up to that level. And again, both Chapel Hill school district and Orange County are very well funded in the State. I don't personally see this as a social injustice issue either or a civil rights issue. It may be a social injustice issue. Again, I think that the funding should be made equal, though I'm not confident that that alone will be enough. I think that that's the situation with the law. I think that merger is not clearly demonstrated to meta be the best way to go about doing it. Thank you. With no further public comment, a motion was made by Commissioner Brown, seconded by Commissioner Halkiotis to adjourn the public hearing at 10:45 p.m. VOTE: UNANIMOUS Barry Jacobs, Chair Donna S. Baker Clerk to the Board