Rikki, Schoonmaker's not saying they'll have to hire 65 new employees -- he's saying they'll need 65 employees, which will be slightly more than double the numer they have now.

The big unspoken here is how it will be funded.

Is the county going to goout and measure each parcel's impervious surfaces (roofs and driveways and parking lots), and assess them a fee?

Does this mean that home and business owners are going to be taxed to support the county's anything-goes growth philosophy?

MJ: "All the fuss is worthless, there are never any gaurantees you will always be zoned for a certain school because of your address, is this not common sense? I actually applaud the county for the balancing they did over several school zones, hopefully they have some balls and stick with the plan knowing full well they will never please everyone."

MJ, hold your applause. This precedent-setting notion of a *systemwide* rezoning for KCS, promoted to us as an efficiency measure, would shuffle student populations in schools that are neither overcrowded nor underutilized, would thrust several populations into high-growth west Knox County, and would mask multiple errors in facilities planning on the part of KCS. I believe I've covered already the disasterous effect it would have on existing school communities.

Central High and Powell High, for instance, are two school populations fully utilizing, but not overcrowding, their facilities. Both school populations are projected to decline per the MPC's so-called PEFA study. Why would you "applaud" disrupting those school commumities?

These two school populations are also among several slated to be thrust westward, into zones that same MPC study predicts will grow by nearly 30% over the next ten years, *without imports*. Does it make sense to you to move these school populations, and in the absence of any impetus, from negative-growth into high-growth areas?

Most relevant, this systemwide shuffle masks three large planning failures on the part of the school board: 1)the HVHS was poorly located (and too little consideration was given to which school populations might attend it), 2) the addition at Karns High was not needed at the point it was built, and 3) far too much $$$ has been thrown at A-E with too little attention given to whether that $$$ produced academic results, or even adequate enrollment numbers. Thus the circuitous "round robin" zoning recommendation for all.

At a time when our debt service on capital spending has reached nearly double our income stream provided through the local option sales tax ($20 million in debt service costs compared to $11 million in revenues earmarked by statute for building, in 2006-07), should the school system continue on this willy-nilly capital spending course?

Unless the circumstances driving this systemwide rezoning recommendation are corrected, our approval of the plan would send the message that we are content to see unbridled west-end development and too little attention to central city issues drive our school system's capital plan decision-making. It would also send the message that we don't value community, either. Finally, it would successfully deflect our attention from other, genuine, efficiency measures that need the school system's attention, like that cluster of five elementary schools serving just 100 or 200 students each, in a three-mile radius of South Knoxville. Now, consolidating some or all of those is truly an "efficiency measure" the school system should undertake, per the counsel of multiple high-dollar facilities audits the school board has sought.

Don't you think that those South Knox students should be asked to walk or drive another half-mile, before school communities countywide are disrupted, and some students asked to drive 8 or 10 miles further? Have you been duped, too?

Yes, I'll agree with you that the N-S reporting to date has missed these larger issues. They have yet to ask what circumstances are driving a proposed systemwide rezoning, and they desparately need to.

PT: "It seems to me if community schools are important, what we have today with Hardin Valley doesn't work to solve the problem for overcrowding south of interstate 40?

Farragut High, with student population at and past 2300 students in recent years, is nobody's idea of a "community school." It is four times the size of the town my grandmother grew up in.

And I'm tired of the whining about the HVHS location. HVHS is six miles from Farragut. Students at Gibbs, Carter, and South-Doyle all travel that far or farther to reach their high schools. Powell and several other schools which don't have a dog in this west Knox race are also being asked to travel that far in the proposed rezoning plan, so that residents of the Town of Farragut do not have to do so. That's not acceptable.

PT: "As you don't want to leave your community in Powell, people in Farragut don't want to leave their community."

If my community's Powell high school school had reached at and past 2300 students in recent years, I believe I would have enough sense to accept that my community needed to be split into two high school zones to accomodate *present* population, not to mention future growth. I would believe that, even though I live in Powell.

You, on the other hand, can't seem to accept that, nor are you one of these "people in Farragut." As a suburbanite to this suburb of the Town of Farragut, your argument is even weaker than theirs. Both areas lie within the Knox County school system, though, and as such, both need to comply with its zoning and school size dictates, or else fund your own schools.

PT: "So it seems everyone loses which means no one wins. Let's start talking solutions."

So far, it seems that everyone but the Town of Farragut loses. Let's *do* start talking solutions.

PT: "Are we willing to bring dollars to the table to build additions to existing schools to accomadate the growth?"

Am I not supposed to notice that HVHS and Karns High are slated in this rezoning proposal to open in '08 with 1347 and 1473 students respectively, occupying their buildings at 65 or 70% capacity, after importing students from east-lying areas? That's the Town of Farragut's "increased efficiency" pitch?

No, we're not willing to bring any more dollars to you until you fill HVHS with the 2100 students it is being built to hold and Karns High, four miles away, with the 2100 students it will now hold, after the addition that opened this month.

When we fill those 4200 seats with west Knox residents, without dragging West, Powell, and Central into the stew, *and* when we unload the 500 students from Powell Middle and Powell Elementary from the trailers they've waited in for the last 20 years, *and* when we remove all those other trailers and replace all those other 80 and 100 year old buildings, then we'll talk again about *future* growth in west Knox feeder schools.

PT: "There have been other threads that high schools shouldn't get that big. Who's decision should that be -- each community or the school board."

Well, it ain't a Farragut alderman's decision, so...the school board?

PT: "Rezoning at this magnitude is only the sign of poor long range planning."

Rezoning at this magnitude would be unprecedented, for sure.

The most recent "sign of poor planning," though, is that the school board planned on us not to notice that they had spent over $50 million on HVHS and Karns High, that the county's three largest high schools would still be the same three HVHS was designed to relieve, that Farragut would reach enrollment of 2400 again long before HVHS is paid for, and that both HVHS and Karns High would be occupied at only 65 or 70% capacity, while school facilities outside of west Knox would be told to relocate to increase their functionality.

Oops. Someone noticed.

Cathy, on the thread you started on this subject, I just posted my complaint that the proposed rezoning plan, exhibiting undue concern for Town of Farragut boundaries and allowing Farragut High to reach nearly 2400 students in the next 8 years, *never* fully utilizes either HVHS or Karns High.

Per the link last week at the N-S site, "High School Enrollment Projections," HVHS would serve only 1440 students and Karns High would serve only 1783 students in 2016! Again, both schools have been built or are being built to serve 2100 students!

Note that these utilization numbers are *after* pulling in students from east-lying areas and *after* students not grandfathered begin arriving at the two schools.

So, again, why is every other KC school community facing proposed rezoning in the name of increased efficiency, while HVHS and Karns High are under no such mandate???