Slats Murphy, Senior SCW columnist

It all comes down to this Tuesday night, sort of like the season-ending game of a long season, for the high school rezoning issue.

The Seminole County School Board has clearly signaled its intent to ratify Plan Z2, the controversial rabbit pulled from a hat by Superintendent Bill Vogel this past October that ignited the entire controversy.

Until the wily superintendent's sleight of hand produced a plan out of nowhere, parents had worked hand in hand with the School District in an attempt to make rezoning as equitable and least disruptive as possible for involved.

The School Board had other plans, however, adopting a plan that affected the most students of all plans possible, starting a cascading cavalcade of busing and rezoning that moves students all across the county, starting at Longwood and continuing east until it hits Oviedo, the site of the new Hagerty High and the reason for all the movement.

Parents had two choices:  to lay down and allow the School Board to roll over them, or to attempt to fight back.  Admirably, they took the latter option, standing up under a brunt of School Board-inspired negative publicity that painted them as selfish, egocentric and condescending towards the rest of the county. 

Perhaps most ironically, the School Board was very successful, at least initially, in attributing to the parents all the alleged traits that are, in reality, exhibited by the School Board members themselves.

Nonetheless, the School Board endured the parents' legal challenge and prevailed, because what is technically legal is not always what is morally and ethically proper.  That lesson has never been taught more vividly and repeatedly than through the actions of our elected officials, and the School Board is no exception.

Just as School Board members have yet to care in that regard, they will care even less, as inconceivable as that notion may seem, after this Tuesday night.  They will give final approval to the plan they and Superintendent Vogel have favored all along, without ever giving a valid or logical explanation as to why.

The question for the parents becomes one of where they go from here.  The answer is left up to them and will be revealed to the rest of us over time.  The parents held a meeting last Thursday evening to discuss their options and have been disturbingly quiet since then.

Until recent weeks, emails from the affected parents were a steady and voluminous portion of those coming to my inbox each day.  In the last week or so, however, they have diminished precipitously, leading to wonderment as to whether the result of one final surprise yet to be forthcoming, or simply that the last gasp has come from an exasperated and exhausted group.

All is disturbingly quiet on the western front.  There is one place the parents can least afford to go after Tuesday night, and it is the same place the School Board most hopes they do go, which is "away." 

The parents have learned too much through their efforts to simply allow all they have done to disappear and have been for naught.  Hopefully, they realize this.

Rather than seeing Tuesday night as the end of their struggle, the parents need to view it as it can be:  the beginning of the end for the current School Board, the source of the parents' angst and travails.  The high school rezoning issue is one of many that have sprung up across the county in the past year or so, and there are more that will be coming.

The same parents that were affected by the high school rezoning will soon face more of the same when middle school rezoning affects the entire county next year.  The experience and education of the parents in their high school rezoning battle needs to be built upon in preparation for the next coming battle that looms just over the horizon.

Parents have a chance as to how they will go down on Tuesday night.  They can accept it quietly and without dissent, making all of their efforts over the past year moot and for naught.

Or they can take a last stand, appearing at the Tuesday night's School Board meeting to make clear that they are still not happy with what is being done.  For School Board members, this decision ends on Tuesday night.  For the parents, it just begins, for they will be living the consequences of the decision on a daily basis for as long as they have children in school.

It is the parents and their children whose lives will be disrupted on a daily basis as they travel past their community school to one miles away, having to deal with traffic and other disruptions that diminish the amount of time in an already hectic day.

It is not just the parents in Longwood who will be affected by such considerations, but parents across the county, from one end to the other.

School Board members, however, will not have to deal with the consequences of their decision once it is made, and they need to be reminded of that.

Hopefully, the parents who have waged such a long battle will see it prudent to make one final stand this Tuesday night.  Hopefully, many of us will choose to join them.  The current School Board has received a free pass too often in the future, mainly because we have failed to hold them accountable.

Lack of an appearance this Tueday will allow the School Board to feel vindicated in their decision, and to minimize the extent of the opposition to it.  It would be a shame to see that happen.

In a way, this Tuesday night' School Board meeting will provide a gauge to measure the current health of our democracy.  Many believe that government is beyond our control, and that common citizens no longer have a voice in what their government does to them.

The cynic within me agrees and expects not many people to attend this Tuesday's School Board meeting.  Realizing that a cynic is nothng more than a disillusioned idealist, however, gives birth to the hope of being pleasantly surprised.

It is obvious that the School Board members, like many other of our elected officials, no longer exhibit much respect for our representative democracy and the rights and concerns of "average" citizens.  They have come to ignore such rights because so many of us have abdicated our responsibility to safeguard them.

This week's School Board meeting provides an opportunity to begin to turn that around.  It will be interesting to see what transpires starting at 7:00 PM Tuesday evening at School Board chambers, at 400 East Lake Mary Boulevard, just east of Highway 17-92.

The idealist within me hopes to see you there.

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