Cooper City Schools Overcrowded?

Commissioner John Sims asks:  "How can Cooper City Schools be overcrowded?  The numbers show      at least 1,000 STUDENTS  LESS IN THE LAST 10 YEARS!"

BRENDA COMMENTS:  "I was contacted by a resident  who  tried to keep students out of Cooper City schools because they did not live within the boundary.  This Cooper City resident contacted Commissioner Lisa Mallozzi for assistance...Mallozzi's  response was:  once a child attends the school undetected for 180 days, they are free to continue to attend Cooper City schools.  Brenda also spoke to a teacher  in the area and the teacher told her  that the school  depends  on  each child for a dollar amount and, if they can get children with learning disabilities or special needs, the school can make more money on those children! 

This  Blogger says:  Yep!  Follow the money!!!

Ed Wooley Responds:

To the extent that our Cooper City Public Schools are overcrowded, it is because of:

1.  school board policy to move students from under-crowded  schools in eastern  Broward County toward the west  because of the poor quality of the schools in the east and the poor results in grades and tests scores.  They also try to move students from the over-crowded  schools in western Broward to the east

2.  the school district and our local principals not doing a better job of enforcing the residency requirements:  that is, students should reside within our current school boundaries.

The school board does not really care about the quality of our local  children's education as their first priority.   The children come somewhere down the list after numerous "mandates" and social engineering concerns.  For example, the direct and least expensive solution  for the children in eastern Broward is to improve those schools, up-grade the quality of their teachers and the safety/behavior situation there.  Better results.  Less busing, less expense.

The school board and the local principals are not, I believe, interested strongly in enforcing our boundary requirements because their school budget goes down when, for example, children in Hollywood, Davie and Pembroke Pines are not admitted to our schools.  Their budgets are largely derived from so much for each child.   The monetary incentive is to turn a blind eye to the rules and/or claim that it is too difficult to check residency.

So, we have Pioneer and Cooper City High over-crowded when there is no good reason.

I can see letting some children in who don't live here, but only up to a point where we hit the class size limits the people voted into the State Constitution.

We should be willing to help others.

We should stop when we start  to hurt our own children.

The Blogger comments:  When you live on 90th Avenue and observe the huge numbers of automobiles at Pioneer  Middle School to pick up or drop off children AS WELL AS the numbers of school buses which load and unload children each day, one wonders about the over-crowding but also about  the school buses which are not all fully loaded!

Do we need those numbers of buses at that school?  Think of the waste of fuel burned unnecessarily for partially filled buses.  Think of the fuel wasted by the automobiles waiting in long lines to pick up students.  Think of the inconvenience to the residents who live on 90th Avenue  caused by the vehicles parked on the roadway.  Also, the large numbers of students who walk after school to wherever they are going.  AND the empty candy wrappers, chip bags, soda bottles, etc. left lying in our yards each morning and afternoon for the residents to pick up after them.   Maybe that is the problem:  No one on the school board or associated with the schools is really THINKING about how to solve the problem and how to save  our tax dollars.

Yep!  Follow the money!

Indeed, Cooper City has  one Commissioner, Mallozzi, and two candidates, Laufenberg and Megna, who profess to want the BEST schools for their children and Mr. Laufenberg has proclaimed repeatedly  and loudly that he is concerned about the School boundaries.  Ms. Megna repeatedly  bragged about her having a Master's Degree in Library Science and her opponents not.  Well, what good is a Master's Degree in Library Science if you work for the School Board and yet, the City in which she resides has all these problems and we have never heard from her with solutions nor have we heard from Laufenberg with any solutions regarding the school boundaries which they are going to protect!

The fact is:  Commissioner John Sims attended all the meetings which were held  in the recent past regarding the School Boundaries when they were in question.  Commissioner Sims has been vocal  about his support of the School Boundaries and our Cooper City Schools and has been active in that respect.  Just where were Megna,  Laufenberg or candidate  Green for that matter?  We did not see them or hear their voices at the City Commission Meetings during that period of time!  Talk during an election race is very cheap but actions really speak louder than those words.  Commissioner Sims acted!