We first moved to our small Southern town about 6 months before my eldest began kindergarten. We found that a long-closed neighborhood school was being cleaned up and re-opened as a year-round school of choice. Somehow they got this shiny new model ready in this very old building, and my child was in the first class to start bottom up.

Sidebar: Turns out (and this is important later in the story) that the school in a long-ago life was the Black high school in our town, when it was still OK to do that (ancient history? In most of our lifetimes!) There are old movies in our library where you can see the kids at the White school parading, waving, yelling, smiling. Then the filmmaker goes to the Black school, and you mostly see very subdued, serious looking kids hugging their books to their chests and looking down or away from the camera.

In any case, with the dedicated help of some of the neighborhood folks who graduated from that high school, this school became very, very successful. In the beginning, there was a good mix of Black and White families, and a good socio-economic cross-section. There were all KINDS of students there, 'cause no one quite knew what to do with year-round education yet. In so many ways it was a unique and wonderfully nurturing school environment for both of my kids.

But it changed over the years. As it became clear that the school was doing well (highest performing elementary in the district) demand grew, and as it became more difficult to get in, the diverse population became more wealthy (now only 13% 'free and reduced lunch"), and more White. We had moved on by then, so I'm not really sure how that all happened, and it saddens me.

Well, this is where it gets interesting….

Not one block away, there is another school, where the neighborhood kids are naturally assigned unless they opt for year-round and get in. They have nearly 65% "free and reduced lunch", much higher percentage of Black kids, and some of the lowest test scores around.

But here's the thing!! ANY parent in the district can and could have applied to send their child to the year-round school! Those of us who started out there got lucky. I know that the district did a great deal of outreach in the Black and Hispanic communities. The reasons families chose for staying in an underperforming school are a mystery to me, and one that I would like to understand.

So now, faced with the facts of a very successful school, and a very not-successful school, steps away from each other, the Board of Education is struggling with the correct response. They are working on a plan that will merge the two schools into a hybrid model, putting K-1-2 in one building, and 3-4-5 in another.

School Board member 1: "Diversity for diversity's sake is not something I'm on board with."

School Board Member 2: "I'm pleased the board spent the time on the process, eventually articulating that socioeconomic balance is critical to the academic and life success of our school children."

But they need to have the buy-in of the parents to make it all work. It will be very interesting to see what 'buy-in' looks like. And what 'buy-OUT" looks like.

Dani