More Closures to Come?
I read this on p. 67 of the Superintendent’s HS Redesign proposal (emphasis mine):
”After high school boundaries are finalized, staff will undertake a community engagement process to address these structural issues at the K-8 level. Starting in fall of 2010, the process will result in recommendations on system wide changes to the school board during the 2010-11 school year and for implementation in 2011-12. The scope of these recommendations may include boundary changes, feeder pattern adjustments, school configuration changes and potentially school consolidation, and the initiation of a new focus school that replicates Sunnyside Environmental School.”
Didn’t we already ring around this rosy 4 years ago? Isn’t this what CAUSED the “structural issues at the K8 level”? How does doing more of the same fix the problem? For example, how would “school consolidation” relieve the overcrowding at Laurelhurst, Alameda, Cleary, Rigler and Scott (which, interestingly, was also acknowledged in this document) as opposed to reopening Rose City Park? How would “school consolidation” relieve the overcrowding at Sunnyside and Abernethy as opposed to reopening Edwards? The School Board has already allocated $11.2 MILLION for trailers; five of the aforementioned schools are among the recipients. Is there going to be a contest to see which school gets the most trailers???
WHERE DOES IT END?????
7 comments
Zarwen, you’re a step ahead of the group! It looks like PPS may not wait for the K-8s. They may close more high schools.
Don’t forget the overcrowding at Harrison Park, since the district doesn’t seem to notice schools east of 82nd. 730 students and counting, 5 specialists to a room. But let’s close neighborhood schools (Clark) and a high school (Marshall) in the districts’ largest student attendance area with some of its’ neediest families. And let’s shove 730 kids in a building (because it CAN fit 800 legally) with the same admin ratio that schools HALF the size have. Of course we can’t afford portables at Harrison Park. Complete inequity. With the newest district plan having Harrison Park boundary become Madison’s southern boundary, it is obvious the district has no plans to reduce the capture area. So students who live 4 blocks from Lent will continue to ride a bus for 30 minutes to get to school. And Marysville can evacuate to a library IN THE HARRISON PARK boundary. Does this not seem strange to anyone else? I have been bringing it up for years, and get the proverbial “pat on the head” (don’t worry, we’ll get to it) . In the meantime, we are over crowded and do not have enough support to give these kids what they need. I am sure the district is just expecting Creative Science to siphon off our more affluent families to decrease our enrollment.
Carries, just saw your other post about the Marshall cluster still growing…guess this comment could work there too.
How can so many families be so marginalized? Where do we go from here?
Bonnie, Maybe the district feels like they’ve addressed it by mentioning “Very large enrollment at Harrison Park K-8″ in the 88-page high school redesign plan. The way that the district has handled school closures sounds odd at best. Why would the district close elemntary and middle schools, reconfigure them so some are K-5s and others K-8s, move on to closing high schools based on the new K-5 and K-8 enrollments and boundaries then move back to closing K-5 or K-8s? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to use a K-12 approach?
Trust me, Bonnie, I have not forgotten about Harrison Park, or any of the schools along the 82nd-92nd corridor. My first PPS job was out there! Also I used to work at Harrison Park school, back when it was Binnsmead Middle School. Even back then, Clark was seriously overcrowded while Bridger was half empty. The excuse from the BESC was that they couldn’t have children crossing 82nd Ave. to get to school.
All of you are forgetting the central tenet of closures: it’s not about the kids, it’s about the BUILDINGS.
The point of my post is that the overcrowding issues are going to get worse all over town. Clearly the agenda is to vacate even MORE buildings, mostly likely for purposes of sale/lease. Please see my earlier post, “PPS Schools: Where Are They Now?” in the April archive.
Zarwen, In fairness to the district they did present the high school redesign plan as “value added.” They just meant that it was added for them personally.
I was at the district/school meetings (of deciding whether to move Clark or Bridger) when the fear of poor students crossing 82nd ave came up.
In the last two years I have had multiple students who have to cross both Division and Powell because (as I understand it) the distance you can live from the school before you get to ride the bus is “as the crow flies”, not how far the distance actually is on the sidewalks. When I think of my little first grader walking with her third grade sister for 30 minutes each morning to school (parent did not have a car) in the middle of winter with only a little sweatshirt on, crossing both Division and Powell on her way, I get angry. These are the stories the district never hears because this child’s parent does not have the ear of someone who can make a difference/money to donate to a board member’s campaign. This child could have walked a little over 6 blocks to attend Marysville. The boundary issues infuriate me. NOBODY seems to be listening. The Clark building should never have been closed. The district can keep closing schools in SE Portland, busing children around town, but our children are not going away. Zarwen, thank you for the support! Keep getting the word out!
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