What's more important for WA school students: proximity, or diversity?

Soundside

To make room for the new Sageview High School, Pasco school board members needed to make a decision: which students would go to the shiny new school, and which would stay at one of the older schools: Pasco High School, or Chiawana High?

This isn’t the first time Pasco’s school board has had to make a decision like this.

When Chiawana High opened in 2009, the district began busing some students across the city to attend the new school, instead of the nearby, much older, Pasco High.
The school boundaries they drew back then were aimed at evening out the share of lower income students at Pasco schools. To create economic diversity at the schools.

This time, the Pasco school board has taken a different approach - listening to parents value proximity over economic diversity. That's raising bigger questions about how demographics like race and income affect student learning and school performance.

Guests:

• Eric Rosane: civic accountability reporter for the Tri-City Herald

• Saba Bireda: Co-Founder of Brown's Promise, an organization that works to end racial and economic segregation in K-12 schools.

Related Links:

• Tri-City Herald:

  https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/education/article289202959.html

• Tri-City Herald:

  https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/education/article288980625.html

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