Press article from Board Meeting

This is in Tuesday's press:

GRPS Officials Tell Parents Seeking Choice to Move

Posted by The Grand Rapids Press September 18, 2007 07:30AM

That's the message some Grand Rapids Board of Education members are sending to city parents who want their children to attend suburban schools.
Board members on Monday defended Superintendent Bernard Taylor's stance on denying student transfers unless there are special circumstances, and some lashed out at parents and their reasons behind the requests.
"It's just blatant racism," board member Arnie Smithalexander said after the meeting. Minority students make up about 75 percent of the city school district.
"They don't want to send their kids to our schools because of the way our kids look. And if they want to send their kids to Kentwood, Grandville or Hudsonville, then fine. They should move there."
Taylor last Tuesday met with parents concerned about county superintendents making it harder for students in charter and parochial schools to transfer to suburban districts. Families now have to compete with others in the choice program, or hope their home district agrees to release the students.
Many charter schools don't offer high school grades. In the past, most charter school parents who live in the city but never have sent their children to city schools were allowed to send students to the suburban high schools.
On Monday, a majority of the board members said they support Taylor's position, and Vice President Lisa Hinkel said the parents have three choices.
"I'd tell them they are free to move to the district of their choice, or they could pay tuition to whatever private or parochial school they want," she said. "Or, they can lobby the for-profit company that runs their charter schools to provide a high school. They should go to National Heritage Academies and demand that they listen to their needs."
Last week, several parents and a representative from the Michigan Association of Public School Academies met with Taylor and his top staff members to discuss the policy.
Educators said the change came after attorneys suggested the charter and parochial parents were given an unfair advantage. But districts such as Kentwood that have taken charter transfers in the past didn't set spaces aside for them this year under the revised policy.
A representative of the charter group said Kent County's choice plan is one of the most restrictive in the state. Parents said they wanted the transfers out of Grand Rapids Public Schools for safety and academic reasons, pointing to standardized test scores.
Taylor described last week's meeting as "very contentious," and dismissed claims that other superintendents tightened the choice plan at his request to halt enrollment losses in the city schools.
"I do not believe I have coercive powers over my colleagues," Taylor said. "I don't think they cower in fear when they see me coming."
Taylor said his staff received 954 transfer requests and approved 623 this year. He said parents of the other 331 students failed to make the case that the city schools could not meet their needs. Taylor said he has asked the Kent Intermediate School District, which oversees the choice plan, to consider some changes, but said it is too soon to discuss what he has in mind.
"I'm being made out to be some kind of villain, but I'm just following the rules," he said.