The Howard County Public School System used to undergo its regular reapportionment process for students, better known as redistricting, every few years. By the end of the 2010s, that time span had extended to almost a decade. The HCPSS Superintendent, Michael Martriano, who had replaced Renee Foose during the Kittleman Administration, led this process under the guidance of the Board of Education.
In addition to balancing enrollments between school clusters and districts, especially in light of the development in the county since the last redistricting, a goal of this process was to create better equity amongst schools in terms of diversity and inclusion. Given the momentous election of 2018, which saw the election of the county's first African-American County Executive, State's Attorney in Rich Gibson, and Sheriff in Marcus Harris, as well as appointments of female Chiefs of Police and Fire and Rescue Services, it would seem that the county would be ready to welcome a more ethnically and socioeconomically diverse school system.
Not so fast. Opposition to the redistricting plan arose, mostly from parents in the River High High School and Reservoir High School Districts, encompassing the area between Maple Lawn and River Hill. For months a vocal group of families and activists protested, attended board meetings, and opposed the plan. Advocates of the plan also organized and made their voices heard. In the end the Board of Education approved a revised plan. And the redistricting plan opponents have taken to the courts, as activists have done in many a land use or education action before, and lent their considerable capital to the cause in an effort to get their way and have the plan that was approved overturned. Whether this opposition to the school redistricting represents a new movement, or whether it is single-issue focused, is too early to discern.
As my former high school English teacher, the late Virginia Pausch (mother of the late Dr. Randy Pausch, speaker of the "Last Lecture") would say, did you see the head fake? The social and community history of justice in Howard County doesn't end here. It's still being written. It never ends. And each and every person living in Howard County has a responsibility and obligation to live within it. In fact, honestly-- you have no other choice.
And so back to the question my podcast guest asked me-- "Don't you think they need to be heard?" referring to the public school redistricting plan opponents. The answer is yes, they do need to be heard. Everyone in every community with an opinion on something, and who feels that their community does not work for them-- they all need to be heard. That much is obvious and anyone who thinks anyone in any community in this country stands above any other is ridiculous.
But, all have a right to be equally heard. John Adams said, and Ronald Reagan echoed, that "Facts are stubborn things". Opinions can be downright obstinate.
One sign during this redistricting saga sticks with me, the following written on a green sign: "No one has to suffer." The sign wasn't held by a parent or child in a socioeconomically lower class, but my one of the opponents-- someone being moved from a school with a wealthier clientele to a school with a poorer one. I didn't know that not going to your siblings' school, or one that didn't have the club you wanted, constituted suffering. I thought the better words would be hardship. Or inconvenience. Or opportunity. And all of these descriptions are part of life.
People who actually suffer-- who have problems making ends meet, who have to make choices between medical care, rent or mortgage, paying bills, and good from month to month-- they also have a voice. The people who can't write five figure checks to attorneys because some board member looked at them funny. The people whose condition does not allow them the luxury of moral outrage. They also need to be heard and their voices are equal.
This community is one of incredible privilege. It always has been. And with that privilege has been promise. The promise that it will rise above the problems that beset other communities and become an example of a model community. That's what Rouse and his colleagues believed. That's what hundreds of thousands believed as they moved into this community.
But Howard County hasn't always lived up to it's promise. It has a history of teasing. It has a history of allowing only so much progress as those in control would let happen. It has only been within the past several years that social change has been allowed to occur in Howard County unfettered. Without the invisible hand of history and of "venerable Howard Countians" to hold them back.
The current situation with the schools is interesting historically because those at the forefront of the redistricting protests fit the profile of the success that life in Howard County was supposed to bring, or also, people who Howard County was designed to attract. Families. Upwardly mobile. With as large a house on as small a lot the zoning laws would allow, with kids who have their choice of prestigious colleges, with professional jobs and financial obligations to match. They represent, in some measure, the future of Howard County. And yet their attitudes towards this current issue suggest not a collective sense of community. Rather, they suggest a collective sense of personal privilege, of wanting the government to bend to their idea of what the community should be. Not acknowledgement of what it is.
But there stand large parts of this county who is not going to let these new landed gentry change the rules. There are yet others who appear indifferent to the entire thing and have their own concerns. Staying healthy through the pandemic. Keeping their jobs. Educating their kids at home while also keeping their jobs. And doing their best to plan for an uncertain future.
And so this is where we leave Howard County. An unfinished rope with many frayed ends. A county that had always had to answer the question as to how open, how welcoming, in fact how true it will be. How those threads knit together, and how strong a rope will form because of it, are the subjects of chapters that have yet to be written.
I hope you've enjoyed reading these posts these last few weeks. I've enjoyed writing them, very very much.
