Here’s my take on open enrollment: It’s great! But there needs to be some responsibility woven into the current system.

If a child is attending a school blocks or miles away from his or her home school, and thriving there, excellent. That’s how the system is supposed to work.

But if a child is enrolled in a school blocks or miles away from his or her home school, and the child is maintaining a D or F average and/or cutting class, roaming the neighborhood, starting fights, disrupting the school day for children who want to learn, or otherwise wasting the day and being a pain in the ass, then the open enrollment privilege needs to be revoked. Open enrollment should be restricted to students with C averages or above who don’t have discipline records a mile long.

Kids who don’t take their education seriously, cause lots of trouble, and make the school so unpleasant that the LOCAL kids don’t want to attend…those kids can just as easily flunk out and raise hell in their own neighborhoods. And that’s exactly where they should be wasting their days, if wasting the school day is what they choose to do.

Our street, however, is NOT the one that is at issue here. The street in question here is actually the upper portion of Chabolyn Terrace, where a small number of houses have Oakland addresses, but are physically located in Berkeley (the exact opposite of our situation).

As an aside, when we contacted Berkeley Unified when we were exploring our school options before our son started kindergarten, we were told we’d have to go through the whole process of applying for an interdistrict transfer if we wanted our son to attend a Berkeley school. That was before we found out what a fabulous school we had in Chabot.

When I applied to Chabot several years ago, the school took out the boundary map when I showed my address and they understood immediately. Probably because it is an issue in their backyard. Or front yard.

The vast majority of Oakland schools are unaffected, so it is not surprising if Troy Flint was taken off guard by the question. To be fair, it is not a common one.

The confusion remains, though. Ironically, back in January we got a letter from OUSD telling us we needed to apply for an interdistrict transfer to go to Claremont. This may be because for the first time in eight years, they finally got our address and zip code right in their computer system (another story).

All said and confusing, the facts remain facts. In spite of our “dual citizenship,” the Oakland property tax collectors make it crystal clear where we live. And they charge us for the privilege each year.

If the boundary issue weren’t at all blurry, as you say, then I wonder why it was something the district’s Options team needed to deliberate over in the first place. Troy Flint said the residences in question fell “marginally” outside the attendance boundary for Chabot. The resulting placements may be perfectly justified and reasonable, but the situation — as explained to me by Flint — doesn’t exactly sound crystal clear.

The fact is that there are several Oakland neighborhoods that have Berkeley addresses. I live on a semicircular street that begins and ends in Berkeley, however the city borders cut through the middle of the street. For postal reasons, they use a Berkeley address. This is so mail carriers don’t have to go partway through the street and then turn around and go partway back. It is that simple.

As as a so-called “Berkeley resident” I pay Oakland city taxes, vote in Oakland elections and have Oakland police and fire responders. I also have Oakland garbage pickup. If you walk past my house on a Monday, you will see that there are different colored trash bins. I also don’t need to apply for an interdistrict transfer because I live in Oakland.

My children go to Chabot and to Claremont and participate just as much as my neighbors who live on Chabot Road. I served on Chabot’s PTA and am active in Claremont’s.

The boundary isssue is not at all blurry. I live in Oakland. The only thing that is blurry is the fact that my mail goes to a Berkeley post office before it is delivered to me. It’s just a fact of where I live and I can’t help it.

Don’t rush to judgment or start rumors until you check the facts. I understand how desirable Chabot is. I was there when it was 40 percent transfer because neighborhood residents didn’t want to send their kids there. I’m sending a child to Claremont so that we can continue to support the improvements taking place there and make it a better place even for kids who don’t get into Chabot.

Yes, I’m sensitive about this issue because they are highly discriminatory and incendiary about those of us who are neighborhood residents that simply have a different address. Please do the research before you jump to conclusions. It is not always what it seems.

Ich bin ein Oaklander ).

I suspect that OUSD is right that the school districting to deal with the situation has been in place for many years. (Whether it should remain in place is, of course, another question, but I don’t think it’s new.)

So there are people with Berkeley mailing addresses who pay taxes in Oakland? Anyone know why that is? That does sound like it needs to be ironed out.

The bigger issue is that Oakland and Berkeley need to sort out once and for all which homes are in which city. This goes far beyond schools (although it’s a huge issue there—I understand that this also plays in reverse, and families in this area can request Berkeley High, too). When the City of Oakland updated their General Plan a decade ago, they mistakenly planned for the commercial area near the Claremont Hotel because they thought it was part of Oakland. The hotel is; the area surrounding it isn’t. Oops. And on the flip side, homeowners with Berkeley addresses but Oakland tax liabilities get stuck in back-and-forths between the two cities.

Schools ought to be assigned based on which city you pay taxes to—but the two cities need to straighten this out in a way that doesn’t create situations like this, because I absolutely agree that it makes sense in theory (walkable neighborhood schools) for these kids to attend Chabot. So–change the tax rolls if necessary. I’m sure they paid a pretty penny for these homes because of Chabot, and Oakland absolutely ought to be the city benefiting from that—not Berkeley.