Parents focused more on school performance than neighborhood safety

A recent study of elementary school enrollment of children living in Weinland Park, conducted by KidsOhio, revealed some surprising findings. The most interesting was that parents who enroll their children in schools other than their `assigned’ school did so not because of perceived safety issues in the assigned school’s neighborhood, but because of academic performance. In other words (the report’s), `Parents sought different schools for reasons tied to concerns inside the school, not outside, and most were directly related to learning’. (Emphasis theirs)

Let’s dwell on this a bit. According to the study, crime in Weinland Park is not the reason that parents send their children to another school. Instead, the primary reason is that Weinland Park Elementary is not a good school. However, we must consider that the survey population consists entirely of parents who live in Weinland Park, so it's not like these are people who are purposely avoiding living in a crime-free neighborhood in the first place. So, in essence, these are parents who are making the best of a bad lot. They live in an unsafe neighborhood anyway (and presumably are unable to move to a safer one) so they are making the logical, informed choice to send their children to the best-performing school available anyway.

Mr Chairman

I've been asked to serve as the new chair of the Communications Committee.

The Buckeyes and the university area

Fall quarter at OSU is about to start, and we've already seen two home football games. Like myself, many long-time area residents have something of a 'love-hate' relationship with the university football team. While we recognize the huge economic benefits that are received by the neighborhoods near the university, they come at a substantial social cost. Traffic, noise, garbage, vandalism, and other nuisances combine to almost literally cripple our neighborhoods for the entirety of game days. Traffic along Summit Street in front of my house was at a stand still for hours after the Miami University game had ended. Garbage in the streets remained uncollected for several days afterward. Students' parties lasted well into early Sunday morning, making sleep difficult for those who live in areas with significant student populations.

This is something with which we must contend for eight weekends every year.

Let me be clear - I understand that OSU's football program isn't going away, and it's popularity isn't going to abate, either. There's nothing that university-area residents can do to affect that, and we realize it completely. The issues here are largely those of frustration and disassociation from the public consciousness, almost to the point of anomie.

For many people whose association with the university is limited mainly to attending football games, the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the university are anonymous; they are little more than parking lots with some houses and apartment buildings mixed in. The idea that these neighborhoods might have actual residents, aside from college students and the poor, does not seem to be countenanced by the tens of thousands who descend on us several times each season. Conversations with neighbors and other area residents have shown me that I am not alone in the feeling that, for OSU football fans who drive in to watch the games, the university area is treated like a combination garbage bin and parking lot.

Perhaps I am exaggerating.

On the other hand...

...some people are simply crazy:

http://groups.google.com/group/wpcca/browse_thread/thread/c7ff9693f2ece10d

Reflections on a meeting

As is usual, I was at once enervated and frustrated by last night's Steering Committee meeting. On the one hand, it seems as if there are a lot of exciting possibilities for our neighborhood. The MORPC proposal and the 'branding' efforts both seem better than I could have believed, even if I have my doubts that either will materialize as intended. But regardless of that it's a great thing to see that others outside WP see the potential we have. The flip side of this is that it seems like all the positive initiatives are coming from outside the neighborhood, either from 'stakeholders' (oh, how I hate that word) like Wagenbrenner or other entities like MORPC. It seems as if our leadership is institutionally paralyzed into inaction, due to mismanagement, lack of communication, lack of a common sense of purpose, or maybe, simply through ideological and policy differences regarding the nature of Weinland Park and the vision of its future.

Since I am part of that leadership I accept responsibility for being part of the problem. Even after a couple of months I have to admit I am baffled at how things actually work on the WPCCA. My impressionist view of how things work is that J has lots of conversations with various people on a semi-regular basis, and maintains ad hoc relationships with a wide variety of individuals. She divulges these relationships and conversations at seemingly random moments during meetings, so no one is able to gain a global view of her activities. Whether this is by design is a mystery to me. Simultaneous to J's activities, it appears as if M and S meet with various stakeholders and other community leaders and try to maintain some semblance of responsibility, progress, and accountability to expected processes. In many ways their actions seem to be independent of, and perhaps even at cross-purposes, with J's. As I said above, this view is at best hazy and impressionistic, so I might be putting a weird spin on things or simply imagining a lot of it.

Meanwhile, other neighborhood 'leaders', such as myself, at times seem like little more than spectators of this odd Kabuki play that they witness at each meeting in which the main participants attend. When I became secretary it was never my main intent to try to drive policy, but rather to simply facilitate the workings of the neighborhood association. But the mysterious, even Byzantine way in which the organization functions makes something as simple as facilitation next to impossible. I attend each meeting unsure of who is responsible for what; I know that an organization largely run by part-time volunteers is going to necessarily have these problems to some extent, but sometimes it feels as if we reinvent procedures every week.

Meeting Times

One wouldn't necessarily think that committee meeting times could be political, but perhaps they can. Yesterday afternoon I attended a Housing Committee meeting (notes to follow.) The meeting was scheduled to start at 5:00 pm. This is, of course, the traditional time the work day ends for most white-collar workers in this country. That makes a 5:00 start time somewhat problematic for most of us who have jobs. (I work 7:30-4:30 so it's not as much of an issue for me.)

So, of the people who would attend these meetings, who could actually get to one by 5:00 pm? I can come up with a couple of answers:

• People who don't have jobs
• People whose job it is to attend the meetings
• The self-employed
  

The first group would include both retired people and the unemployed. The second group essentially consists of people who don't live in Weinland Park, but work for government or non-profit agencies with an interest in the neighborhood. The term used for this group is 'stakeholders', as in, they have a stake in the community, yet aren't a part of it.

So, in essence, a 5:00 pm meeting time is almost designed to prevent the people who should be attending the meetings to be able to do so. Interesting.

'Welcome to the Communications Committee'

I showed up, as is my wont, about ten minutes early. By 5:50, when it was clear that no one else was going to show up, I left. Afterward I received a couple of emails saying the metting had been canceled because so few people could show up.

Way to communicate!