Petition against LUSD homeschool boundary change

We the Brookside residents of Brook Falls, Autumn Chase, and Summer Wind call on the Lincoln Unified School District to reconsider the proposal to change our beloved neighborhood school from Brookside School to Claudia Landeen for the reasons listed here:

1. This proposal is a case study for why private school enrollments are booming. People who care about their childrens educations purchase and rent homes in areas where they believe have the best schools that would be the best fit for their families. And, in this case, only to have the rug pulled out from under them. Grandfathering current residents is not sufficient. People move to neighborhoods so their children can walk to school, go to school with, and play with children in the neighborhood. This is the way communities are strengthened.

2. Changing neighborhood schools should only be done after rigorous assessment of cost and benefit. What is the analysis that led to this proposal? Is it in writing? Have parents had a chance to review? The actual yield of students is estimated to be minimal. What is the logic in making this change?

3. Long range strategic planning should be done. Demographic projections are not difficult to commission. Hiring plans and school construction and renovation plans should be based on demographic projections and principles of neighborhood schools.

4. Annual accountability reports should be presented to the community. How funds are spent, how operational plans align with strategic plans, and success metrics all should be presented in a consistent, easy-to-understand format to the public. This constitutes due diligence in stewardship of tax dollars.

5. The plan will most likely also have negative affect on our property values. Research has indicated that changing school boundaries reduces home values by an average of 10\% (Bogart & Cromwell, 2000; Journal of Urban Economics).
It should be noted that this research was conducted in a district where the two schools were of the same quality and thus 10\% is a conservative estimate of the impact on our property values. We would expect the home values to decline even more given that Claudia Landeen has a lower API score. Indeed, recent research has found that the price premium parents must pay to buy a house in an area associated with a better school increases as school quality increases (Chiodo, Hernandez-Murillo, & Owyang, 2010; Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review).