A public meeting rife with criticisms, insults and outbursts ended with parents and school officials on both sides of a Normal Park zoning battle calling for a compromise.
Normal Park Museum Magnet School parent Jim Crooks called the meeting Monday night at the North Chattanooga Recreation Center to bring light to a different set of zoning and enrollment numbers: ones he came up with on his own. He said data provided by the school system didn’t seem accurate to him, and he wanted to crunch the numbers himself.
He wanted those in attendance — mostly current Normal Park parents — to “think for themselves” and draw their own conclusions, he said.
“Look at both sets of numbers and make up your minds,” he said.
The issue is whether to expand Normal Park’s zone to include students who live on Bell and Spears avenues in North Chattanooga. When Chattanooga Middle School closed in 2007, residents of the two streets were told their children could attend the popular magnet school beginning in 2010.