By:Andrew Coen
More details have surfaced in Lawrence schools Superintendent Dr. John Fitzsimons- proposal to consolidate the district. Fitzsimons sent a letter to faculty and staff on Tuesday, Feb. 3, offering a possible timetable if the plan, which is in its early stages, were to be implemented.
Under the plan, the number of schools in the district would be reduced from seven to six. The Number Four School in Inwood, which houses the district-s kindergarten and pre-K students, would not be closed, as was reported in last week-s Herald, and that has never been a consideration, according to Fitzsimons.
Fitzsimons explained that the consolidation plan with which he approached the PTA at a recent meeting involves converting the Number One, Two and Five schools from the current grades 1 through 5 to 1 through 6, turning the Number Six School in Woodmere into a middle school, and converting the current middle school into the high school. The current high school building, on Reilly Road in Cedarhurst, could be used for district administrative offices and a new Peninsula Public Library, according to Fitzsimons.
The schedule outlined in the superintendent-s letter proposes that students who enter the sixth grade in September 2004 remain at their elementary schools, while the middle school would house only grades 7 and 8, and a new roof and other site modifications would take place.
The preliminary plan calls for the reassignment of the roughly 200 students at the Number Six School in Woodmere to the remaining three elementary school buildings in September 2005, completing the conversion of the Number One, Two and Five schools into grades 1 through 6. During that time, the Number Six School would undergo the repairs and renovations necessary for it to become the new middle school. Once the renovations are completed, around January 2006, students in grades 7 and 8 would move into the Number Six School.
From January to September 2006, there would be a complete renovation of the present middle school building to prepare it to house grades 9 through 12 as the new high school. Once that move is completed, the central administrative offices would move into the current Lawrence High School in Cedarhurst. The high school-s athletic fields would also be retained for student use, according to the superintendent, and there some of the land could be leased to a compatible tenant, which, according to Fitzsimons, could be the Peninsula Public Library.
The proposed plan drew outrage from Lawrence Village Trustee Martin Oliner, who said that moving the high school to the middle school location would make an already bad parking and traffic situation even worse. I think it will create tremendous traffic and congestion, and that it is just an insane idea, said Oliner. At the middle school now, with no students driving, we have parking problems with people parking on Broadway.
Oliner said he supports Fitzsimons- goal of saving the district money, but that a better way would be to merge the Number Five and Number Six schools. According to Oliner, the village government and civic associations plan to rally in opposition to the plan.
Fitzsimons will ask the board for authorization to conduct a feasibility study on the possible plan at the Feb. 10 school board work session, after press time. Fitzsimons said that the feasibility study needs to be done in order to determine both the educational and economic benefits for the district. If you can get an educational benefit and at the same time reduce operating costs, I think you have a winner, said Fitzsimons. The only way we could recommend a change is if it enhances education while at the same time reducing operating costs. We don-t want to do anything that would harm the kids.
Fitzsimons has made clear that nothing has been finalized, and that he is just looking into possible future options for the district at this point. Nothing has been done we-re simply thinking about it, he said. We really need to sit down as an administration team and figure out what is right for the district.
If the plan were to be implemented, it would not need approval from the public, but the board could opt to put the issue up for public referendum.
I-d like to be able to time this so that if I can get support at our Feb. 10 meeting, I can get some sort of study and recommendation done before the budget vote, said Fitzsimons.
A consolidation plan would be the first change in the grade structures in Lawrence since 1987. Prior to 1987, the elementary schools housed grades 1 through 6, the Number Four school housed pre-K and kindergarten, the middle school enrolled grades 7 through 9 and the high school served grades 10 through 12 which were housed at the middle school site until the early 1960s.
