Rachy, I'm not up on carved-out gang territory here but there is obviously some. When our kid was in 8th grade at a school that was pre-k through 8, one Friday the district ordered that the class be moved over to a junior high in the adjoining neighborhood on Monday. Like they were furniture.
Kids and parents alike were panicking. The principal told me I was the one who could stop it. (already preparing, as were many, many others, to home school). I did stop it through a series of community meetings.
What was the problem with this? Our son attended that very school in the summer where there was a district-wide magnet arts program.
Now, he hated it because it was serious work:D, but that program was run by a different building principal than the one during the school year.
There was *no* trouble, violence, fighting. Nothing. Our kid has hemophilia and yet I was totally calm the whole time he was there. The regular school year was another story.
One of the school board members asserted it was the white parents who were afraid. Ignoring the meeting hall packed with black parents who were adamant their children weren't going there. They knew that the problem was territory. That their black children would be targeted by the black children there.
The transfer was stopped but the next year was accomplished. In the first few days of school, a girl got her had slammed with a metal door locker and was taken to the hospital where she remained in a coma.
So, yeah, territory.
