I agree that Pratt Community School should be kept open as a district run school, and for the same reasons as outlined in the Position Paper Regarding Pratt Community Education Center:
1. Keeping Pratt Community School open is consistent with the goal of integrating the student population by race and socioeconomic status. Pratt serves a neighborhood with a school age population that is diverse in terms of race and socioeconomic status. 2. A large majority of Pratt students live within walking distance from school, which greatly reduces transportation costs and makes the school more accessible to parents. 3. Educational outcomes have been positive. Moreover, as a small school, Pratt is under pressure financially to avoid or minimize the use of ability-grouping. Pratt is a K-5 school that would be fully enrolled with a student population of 143 (?), presumably with an average of one classroom per grade level. Small schools may have inherent advantages over large schools other than the impracticality of ability-grouping students into separate classrooms on a part-to-full time basis. 4. Pratt School is a model for being part of a multiple use facility (K-5 / adult education / community center), which cuts some of the overhead costs for the all of the programs that utilize the facility. Other small school can utilize some of their unused classrooms to the extent they can find similar partnerships to share space and facilities. 5. Pratt is also a model for small schools with respect to its relationship with Tuttle School. Pratt and Tuttle share a principle, specialist teachers, education, social workers, interns, coordinators, and administrative resources, which reduces costs associated with economy of scale. 6. Pratt apparently meets the district's criteria for cost-effectiveness. Pratt required some cross subsidy due to under-enrollment, not high program costs. Program costs are low enough that Pratt school would actually be a very "profitable" operation if fully enrolled. The analysis of Pratt's budget (Attachment A, Position Paper Regarding Pratt Community Education Center) offers evidence that Pratt School's current operating expenses in fiscal year 2002-2003 were $476,000, not $636,000 as alleged by board member Judy Farmer. That reduces the "cross subsidy" for fiscal year 2002-2003 from $223,110 to $63,110. Cost savings for transportation, which was not taken into account in either analysis, would offset most of the $63,110 "cross subsidy." In 2002-2003 Pratt was a K-3 school with 63 students that could accept up to 76 students with full enrollment defined as 19 students per grade level, and 92 students with full enrollment defined as 23 students per grade level. Pratt would have reached a fiscal break-even point with just a couple more students (if you take savings in transportation costs into account. 7. There is a possibility of making adjustments to Pratt's educational program to deal with substantial underenrollment at one or more grade levels, such as having at least one multiage classroom, which is the traditional practice for Montessori and some other programs. Regular MPS schools are also using multiage classrooms (e.g., combining grades 1 and 2). "Position Paper Regarding Pratt Community Education Center" and "Attachment A: Analysis of Pratt School Budget" can be found at the following web addresses: http://www.pperr.org http://44clarence.com/pratt -Doug Mann, King Field Mann for School Board www.educationright.com REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
