Dear Editor:
A couple of decades ago, two new, nearly identical middle schools were built because in the words of a previous administration, "We knew that was the only way we could ever pass the bond issue."
The recent previous administration spent a year convincing us that the old high school was deadly dangerous and "fixing" all the hazards would cost billions, far more than building a massive new school for everyone. If one simply tried to walk through the old school, you surely would die of lead poisoning if you just walked past a water fountain; you would be crushed by hoards of students navigating a miserable floor plan; you would die of mesothelioma before you reached the exit and they'd never find your body after a fire from old, gone-bad wiring. As least that is what the previous admin would like to have had voters believe at the last, (failed) bond issue vote.
Now, we have a proposal for a magnificent, gleaming new edifice only for the west side of the district at bazillions of dollars cost, to be balanced with a slap-dash "fix-up" (probably not much more than a coat of paint), that will make the decrepit old building good enough for the slum-bums who live on the East side.
Biggest problem with this is that the current admin expects those slum-bums on the east side, homes and businesses to pay half of the obscene cost of the magnificent, gleaming new edifice for only the west side. Ouch!
One can already hear the values of east-side property, even new homes, crashing. Look out for the stampeded of home-buyers to the west side.
It is time to stop unreasonable "solutions" like this current one, which will never be passed by voters.
A far better, equitable, and long overdue proposal is to divide JCPS into two new, wholly separate, districts: two separate boards, two separate bond issues, two separate taxes, two separate high schools and then each new, separate school district will "get what they pay for."
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