Polite disagreement

The public hearing on attendance boundaries for Mankato's new Rosa Parks Elementary was an interesting place to be on Monday night.
A few observations:
- Folks are remarkably loyal to their neighborhood schools. A couple families said they built homes in the Franklin attendance area specifically for that school. A couple other families said they trust the education at their current school and are hesitant to change.
- District boundary lines are confusing. Mankato's map of boundaries looks like a jigsaw puzzle. Washington's boundary stretches across much of hilltop Mankato, but only because its own neighborhood has lost much of its residential land due to the expansions by the two hospitals and Bethany Lutheran College. Kennedy's area, however, is so concentrated with students that its boundary is little more than an island situated in the middle of Washington's area. It's confusing to district officials, not to mention parents.
- Lastly, people are exceedingly polite in this town. Parents had legitimate concerns about the effects of these changes on their children - and they brought all of them to the public hearing. One woman said her daughter is already having anxiety about changing schools; another parent was worried his child might now spend more than an hour on the bus each morning. But despite the concern and disagreement, discussion was respectful and polite throughout.

But just in case you're wondering what Mankato is missing (or what you can do to waste the next four minutes), here are a couple good fight videos from town-hall style meetings:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts5siyBYddM&feature=related
2. http://failblog.org/2009/04/02/injury-fail/
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J63nHNydOgs