Statement on May 7 Public Hearing on Redistricting

Verne Vance, Chair, Newton School Committee

5/1/01 @ 5:15pm

(revision: Option Variations to be submitted directly to Carol Bock rather than to Supt. Young; see below)

On Monday, May 7, starting at 7 p.m. the School Committee will hold a public hearing at Brown Middle School on the six redistricting options that have been proposed by Superintendent Jeffrey Young for consideration by the Committee. Any variations on those six options, or any additional options that anyone wishes to have the Committee consider, should be submitted to Carol Bock (see end of this statement) this week so that they may be addressed at next Monday's public hearing.

At the public hearing each speaker will be limited to three minutes for his/her oral comments to the Committee, although written comments of any length may be submitted to the Committee. At the public hearing everyone wishing to address the Committee should sign up with her/his name, address, and, if he/she is speaking on behalf of a particular school community, the name of that school. Although generally speakers will speak in the order they sign up, in the interest of fairness we will alternate speakers representing various school communities, as we did at the prior public hearing on redistricting. Thus, if the first five people who sign up are all speaking on behalf of School A, the first to sign up will be heard first but the other School A speakers will be deferred until the first speakers to sign up on behalf of School B, School C, etc. have spoken. We will then go back to the second speaker for School A, the second speaker for School B, etc.

Comments at the public hearing will be most helpful to the School Committee if they focus on how a particular option or options meets/meet the criteria for decision that were previously enunciated by the Committee.

The Committee will consider additional variations on the six options, or additional options, that are submitted to Carol Bock (Carol_Bock@newton.mec.edu; 617-552-7645) by Thursday, May 10. Proposals submitted after that date cannot be considered by the Committee, which will engage in public discussion of the various options at its meeting of May 14 and then vote a final redistricting plan at its meeting of May 29.