Taking A Bite Out Of CMS; 11 Schools To Close Next Year
District officials have argued the changes are designed to bolster academic performance and are necessary to help save money, as CMS braces for upwards of a $90 million budget shortfall next year. The changes approved Tuesday night by the board are expected to save about $10 million in the first two years, with an ongoing savings of about $6 million a year. Officials contend that could help spare about 120 teacher layoffs.
Han Plotsender, a CMS teacher who was arrested for protesting at a previous public forum, wasn’t buying it.
“It’s interesting that you talk about having to avoid laying off teachers but you do not mention any of the other 9,000 employees that are not in the classrooms,” Plotsender scolded the board Tuesday night. “If savings from school closings are so critical, why did you just approve $1.2 million extending contracts for a handful of administrators?”
Maudia Melendez, executive director of Jesus Ministry, accused the board of already having made its decision, without fully listening to the concerns of the community.
“You have disregarded the cry of the children, the voice of the parent, and have divided our community,” she said, “closing schools and switching children from one building to another, and then displacing the most vulnerable children, the blacks, the Latinos, and other minorities.”
Other speakers encouraged the board to get more detailed information before making sweeping changes that would impact nearly 25,000 students and almost 70 of the district’s 178 schools. While some schools face closings, for example, others will see student boundaries change and whole schools consolidated.
Laura Rice, a First Ward Creative Arts magnet school parent, said the board didn’t have enough data to understand how creating a year-round school would impact student achievement. First Ward will consolidate with University Park Creative Arts to form a multi-track, year-round school, starting in 2012.
“CMS has not done its homework, yet the board is being asked to approve these half-baked plans,” Rice said.
Others expressed similar concerns and skepticism about the district’s plan to expand eight elementary schools into facilities that serve a K-8 student population.
Board members Waddell and Tate said the only study they had received from CMS staff indicated that making such a transition doesn’t improve academic achievement at high-poverty, minority schools, noting that all eight targeted schools in CMS fit that description.
“We’ve been assured (by staff and the superintendent) that it will work,” Tate said of the K-8 model. “But it’s really a hope rather than an assurance.”
McGarry, meanwhile, expressed concerns about safety problems that combining young students with much older ones could cause.
“I need assurances that K-8 students will be safe. Can I get that assurance?” she asked. The audience answered in a collective and loud, “No,” nearly drowning out Gorman’s reply of, “We’ll certainly look at that safety area.”
A motion from Waddell and Tate to delay a vote on creating the K-8 models failed. The elementary schools that will expand to K-8 include Berryhill, Reid Park, Druid Hills, Walter G. Byers, Ashley Park, Bruns Avenue, Thomasboro, and Westerly Hills.
Other changes on the horizon for next year: Davidson I.B. Middle School will close, with its students moving to Alexander Middle; closing Irwin Avenue Elementary School (ES) and sending its students to Dilworth or Ashley Park ES, while students from Villa Heights Learning Immersion/Talent Development magnet would move into Irwin ES; closing Lincoln Heights ES and shifting its students to Bruns Avenue ES; closing Oakhurst ES and sending its students to Rama Road ES or Billingsville ES; closing Pawtuckett ES and sending its students to Whitewater Academy; closing the Amay James Pre-K site.
Winding Springs ES will become a neighborhood school and see its global economics magnet program move to Marie G. Davis Military/Leadership Academy; J.T. Williams, Bishop Spaugh and Wilson middle schools will close, with most of their students moving to one of the newly created K-8 schools. Cochrane Middle School will become a new 6-12 school, with high-school grades added one year at a time, starting with ninth-graders next year.
Despite calls from angry and concerned parents, as well as some county commissioners and city councilmembers, to delay parts or all of the proposed changes, CMS officials said they needed to move forward Tuesday night to keep on schedule with student/school assignments, magnet lotteries, and budget allotments for the new school year.
“No matter what, this won’t be the perfect solution,” Davis, the board chair, conceded as his colleagues prepared to settle the Waddell/Harding/Smith decision, the last vote taken in what was a frequently contentious and heated meeting. But it was time, he said, to move on.
“Dragging this out longer, with further unknowns for students and staff and parents,” Davis said, “will not bring our community together moving forward.”
And to think, they’ve done such a bang-up job so far.
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