I wholly support SOMSD's Intentional Integration Initiative (“Triple-I”).

 

Every child in our district should have the opportunity to learn, grow, and build relationships with children from across our community. Where a family happens to live should not determine the educational environment its children experience.

 

Our district also has legal obligations related to integration. But my support for Triple-I goes beyond legal compliance. Before Triple-I, socioeconomic differences among some of our elementary schools were enormous. In the 2018-2019 school year, 44 percent of students at Seth Boyden qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, compared with approximately 3.5 percent at South Mountain. Those differences are smaller today, but there are still unacceptable disparities.

 

As of October 2025, approximately 15.2 percent of students districtwide qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. The percentages still vary widely among elementary schools, with Clinton and Seth Boyden at 22.6 percent and 20.6 percent, respectively, while other schools are under 10 percent (9.2 percent at Bolden, 9.3 percent at Marshall, 6.3 percent at South Mountain and 7.5 percent at Tuscan).

 

We have made progress. That does not mean the work is finished.
 

Socioeconomic balance matters for educational reasons. There is a strong relationship between economic disadvantages and academic challenges. That does not mean every economically disadvantaged student struggles, or that every struggling student comes from an economically disadvantaged household. But schools with concentrated populations of students with greater needs can face greater challenges in providing the individual attention, services and support to which students are entitled.

 

I believe socioeconomic balance is therefore an important educational goal in its own right, not simply a way of achieving racial balance, as some would believe.

 

At the same time, families have raised legitimate concerns about transportation, inconvenience and cost. Supporting Triple-I does not mean refusing to ask whether the program can work better.

 

For starters, the public deserves a clear accounting of transportation costs.

 

The district’s overall transportation budget for 2026-27 is $10+ million. Of that, nearly $7 million is spent on a variety of needs unrelated to Triple-I, including special education transportation, aid-in-lieu payments, athletics and other needs. Of the remaining $3.1 million budgeted for “Regular Education Between Home and School”, an unknown portion is also unrelated to Triple-I, including the South Mountain shuttle, ESL transportation to Clinton, transportation related to hazardous routes, and other services.

 

Before making major changes to Triple-I, I believe the Board and administration should give the public a detailed analysis. What does Triple-I transportation actually cost? Which transportation expenses would exist with or without Triple-I? Where are efficiencies possible? Could bringing some transportation operations back in-house save money?

 

My position is straightforward: preserve Triple-I and keep improving it.

 

We should continue working toward stronger socioeconomic balance, examine whether the current assignment model is accomplishing what it was designed to do, listen to families experiencing problems, and demand much greater transparency about transportation and cost.

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Integration and fiscal responsibility should not be treated as competing values. We can and should pursue both. Triple-I should not be a program we simply defend or dismantle. It should be a program we preserve, scrutinize, improve, and hold accountable for the educational goals it was created to achieve.

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