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I think the closure of up to four small
community schools in the East area is a much, much more thorny issue than just
low enrollment and building costs as our MPS district would like us to
believe. The district is touting its move to support small high
school learning environments for high school kids and telling us that for grade
school kids small schools are just too darn costly.
And as Rita Miller pointed out earlier
on a posting, the MPS district has systematically manufactured
low enrollment for our schools in our area to force their
closings. And we have the
evidence.
Not to say that the Soutwest's magnet k-8's
are not wonderful ~ most southwest Minneapolis schools are
fantastic. It is just that small schools are also a well
respected, well researched, viable option to meet the needs of children
from very diverse backgrounds. And are a great way to prevent
kids from falling through the cracks. Our Somali families WANT
to stay at our school because they are known, welcomed, and have a voice that is
heard and they do feel a part of the community. Statements echoed by my
daughter's best friend's famliy who are Native American.
The East area housing is more
affordable for families than southwest's housing and we have more
affordable housing coming our way. We need our schools.
A main bone of contention for us is that we
have been actively seeking the district's help to work with us to make
these schools financially viable for the last three years. We have
conducted a number of well attended community meetings, some small meetings with
board members, the superintendent, we have invited district number crunchers out
to our schools...really the time and energy this community has devoted to
sincerely trying to establish a small school task force with the
district is unbelieveable. And it never materialized.
Even last summer I met with our Area
Superintendent Birch Jones, Catherine Shreves and a couple of other folks from
our area to make sure small schools were on the district's radar so that
the small school issue would not fall through the district cracks in
light of its well-known budget woes. AND to make sure that the
district allows ample time for rational arguments, time to do the math, avoid
the district spin, research the truth and again, figure out what is reasonable
and what works best for the East area to have schools that the
district will support.
End result? Hiawatha's principal
receives a letter last week stating the tight timeline the district finds itself
in meet to its goals to close three to four schools in our area.
We invited Birch Jones to our Hiawatha PTO last week and
he confirmed the good news for our area. Wouldn't it have been wiser
to have been working with us on the solution for small schools three years ago
when we first started asking questions and asking the district for a task
force to address the small school viability issue? Or how about five years
ago when the district made a commitment to go back to community schools?
Don't get me wrong, the district has been great at listening and they are
charming. But that doesn't really help us.
And what's the enrollment at Southwest's
Lake Harriet k-2 lower campus...250? Shouldn't they be in the
discussion to close and save the district money? How about Pratt?
That building has to be the same age as our schools and what's its
enrollment...50? I know, I know, they are growing their school to be
a k-5 community school. We are talking about low enrollment and older
buildings right? In fairness then, lets close Southwest Minneapols Lower
Lake Harriet campus, Pratt and one from the East area. It's really about
costs right?
Why are we allowing magnets to thrive
and not supporting community schools? How about really
saving money and eliminating magnets and putting that programming in community
schools? More bang for your buck and perhaps a more honest
and fair approach to educating our children? And really, how
does magnets jive with the district's goal to have children attend schools in
their own neighborhoods and save the district transportations costs? We
allow magnets busing from one end of town to the other but our
community schools are asked to shrink their attendance area even more.
What that means for Hiawatha Community School is that they will lose up to
two bus loads of neighborhood kids. And please, give us the exact dollars
we are shelling out to send our students to Marcy, southwest's Barton and Ramsey
etc. versus local community schools.
I truly believe the district
has dropped the ball on small community schools and their potential.
Let's study this fiasco, and then
lets talk about closing four schools, from our area and does this really need to
happen and who is really benefits from their closures?
Nafiz and Robin Halloum
Longfellow Residents
Hiawatha Parents
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