Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

Parents picket in Lower Merion

Two dozen picketers angry at a proposed redistricting plan for the area's two high schools demonstrated in front of the Lower Merion School District headquarters this morning.

Two dozen picketers angry at a proposed redistricting plan for the area's two high schools demonstrated in front of the Lower Merion School District headquarters this morning.

Waving signs saying, "Heck no, we won't go," and "Keep our neighborhood together," the 22 adults and two children assembled at 7 a.m. outside Lower Merion High School at 301 E. Montgomery Ave. Ardmore.

"One of the reasons we moved here is [we believed] that our kids would walk to high school. The unfairness of this has riled me up," said Peter Lee, 38, a parent who lives in a part of South Ardmore from which pupils likely will be bused to Harriton High School, although they're within walking distance of Lower Merion High School.

In response, school spokesman Doug Young called the redistricting proposal "a challenge of geography." He said district officials realized that there would be communities that felt: "This is wrong for us."

"That's the reality of creating two equal high schools of equal size," Young said. "This particular plan attempts to draw students from neighborhoods closer to Harriton, while preserving the walk zones [to Lower Merion High] as they exist today."

The peaceful, hour-long protest comes eight days before the school district's nine-member board is due to vote on the proposal that is aimed at equalizing enrollment at Lower Merion and Harriton High Schools.

The outdated school buildings are being replaced with new facilities at their respective sites in Ardmore and Rosemont.

Because most of the the township's families live near Lower Merion High School, a controversy has developed over which pupils will be forced to travel by bus to Harriton, a ride that takes up to 45 minutes.

About 200 students from separate parts of South Ardmore, North Narberth and Penn Valley will furnish those students starting this fall, under the district's latest plan, Young said.

Projections show that Lower Merion High will have 1,330 pupils this fall, and Harriton will have 892; Young said the district's aim is to have 1,100 students at Lower Merion and 1,050 at Harriton by fall of 2012.

But parents and community leaders from those areas said the plan splits the communities of Narberth and Ardmore, isolates the affected students from their peers, and unfairly places the burden of redistricting on the minority residents of South Ardmore.

"It's plain discrimination in my mind," said the Rev. Albert G. Davis, pastor of Mount Calvary Baptist Church, 127 Walnut Ave., Ardmore, and president of the Main Line Branch of the NAACP.

"The bottom line is: Give everybody a choice. You might be surprised. It [the enrollment] might balance out," Davis said.

Young responded that the redistricting plan was not discriminatory. "We have heard similar concerns from Penn Valley," he said. The population of Penn Valley is largely white.

Plan 3-R gives pupils townshipwide the option to attend Harriton, and also adds special courses not available at Lower Merion. But those measures alone won't bring about the enrollment balance the district is seeking, Young said.

The redistricting plan, which has been under consideration by the school district and citizenry since summer, has been through numerous changes.

The current version is known as plan 3-R, the R standing for revisions made when the walk zone around Lower Merion High was restored to its present state. The walk zone had been reduced under Plan 3-R's predecessor, Plan 3.

Feeling about redistricting runs high; both plans have drawn 1,300 emails from Lower Merion residents, Young said. The school board has vowed to consider all feedback submitted in writing. The period for public comment ends tomorrow.

Amy Whitaker, 50, who came out in the morning cold to express her view, said she is dreading next year, when her twins will be bused to Harriton. If Plan 3-R is approved, she said, her family will be dealing with a school too far away from her home in North Narberth.

"I don't feel like I can participate in their education for the next four years," Whitaker said. "If they miss the bus, no one can bring them home. We're isolated from everyone around us."

Aaron Williams, 37, a South Ardmore resident who was accompanied by sons Benjamin, 6, and Curtis, 8, said he worried that the plan would create problems for low-income families without cars.

"They won't be able to get to school if something happens to the children," Williams said.

Young said the district would go out of its way to accommodate all transportation issues. He said that the district would like to "make everyone happy."

"The reality is, we have two new schools being built," Young said, adding that Lower Merion and Harriton would both give students a rich academic experience. "I took a tour of Harriton last week, and it's going to be an exceptional place."