NECN group considers the Sabin, Alameda, Beaumont boundary proposal

Tonight several Alameda Neighbors and a couple from Irvington joined the group of representatives from most of the other member neighborhood associations at a meeting of the SALT (Safety And Livability Team) of the NECN (Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods). SALT is a new NECN group. On their agenda for the evening was discussion involving Alameda, Sabin and Beaumont schools and PPS proposals that would redraw the school boundary between Sabin and Alameda. The redrawn boundary would have the effect of moving a large chunk of the Alameda Neighborhood, and some of the Irvington Neighborhood into the Sabin school boundary.

Echoing some of the discussion that 50 Alameda neighbors had January 9^th in an ANA sponsored for families with preschool children who had received no notice or information about this from PPS, and more of the discussion at Beaumont Middle School on January 17^th in the only meeting for community input, the SALT group tonight was incredulous. After many questions and extensive discussion, the group decided to write a letter from the Team to the PPS Board urging that the process be halted and the PPS Board vote set for Feb. 7^th be delayed to allow reasonable time for consideration of change of this scale. They plan to ask the NECN board to send the letter also under its own aegis.

As reasons for the delay they will point to the woefully inadequate notice to the community, the lack of adequate representation (e.g., area “C”), and the need to consider a more comprehensive solution.

(I don’t have the exact words they will use.)

We need a clever solution to the overcrowding, not a cleaver one that severs Alameda. The boundary change would take a band-aid solution and stitch it permanently into the wound.