By:Andrew Coen
More than 100 District 15 residents gathered for a consolidation forum in the Lawrence Middle School auditorium April 14 to complain about the new plan.
Operating on a contingency budget after district voters defeated the proposed budget last June, the district has been seeking ways to save money, and a consolidation plan would do just that, Fitzsimons has said. He also said the district has excess classroom space.
When a feasibility study was initiated in February, the original plan called for eventually moving middle school students into the Number Six School building and moving high school students into the current middle school. But the plan was scrapped when it was decided that seventh- and eighth-graders could not be accommodated in the Number Six School building.
Dr. Fitzsimons said the administration is now leaning toward closing the early-childhood center and moving the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students into the remaining elementary schools.
Fitzsimons was scheduled to present his recommendation to close the Number Four School at the April 20 school board work session, after the Herald went to press. According to school board president Frank Parise, a vote on the recommendation would not take place at the April 20 meeting, but could be taken at the April 27 board meeting.
The administrative council, when it looked at its options and it looked at the three variables impact on instruction, fiscal impact and acceptance to the community it was a clear consensus, said Fitzsimons during the forum. These are always tough. No matter what you do, somebody feels that you should do something else.
The consensus was that the one program that would have the least disruption, and we could replicate the program across other schools, would be to move the kindergartners from the Number Four School into the remaining elementary schools, along with the pre-K programs as well, he added.
The feasibility study on consolidation shows that closing the Number Four School would save the district an average of $800,000 a year, compared with $775,000 if the Number Five School in Cedarhurst were to close and $840,000 if the Number One School in Lawrence were to close. During the forum, one parent asked why the Number One School was not being considered for closing when it would provide more savings.
In response, Fitzsimons said, One of the considerations is impact on instructional programs as well as the impact on [the] financial [situation], and it was the thinking of the administrative council that this would have the least disruption to kids. [The students] aren-t even [at the Number Four School] yet, so they don-t have an identity with the school.
Several parents expressed concerns about the possibility of kindergartners taking the same buses as fifth-graders. They said they were worried about the safety of their 5- and 6-year-old children if they attend the same school with students 4 to 5 years older.
In most schools in the United States, folks have K-through-5 schools. This is not a novel idea, said Fitzsimons in response to groans from the crowd, in which many wore white Number Four School T-shirts. We also have on our buses here video cameras, and we have very good security. He said that pre-K students may continue to be bused separately.
Fitzsimons also said that the existing early-childhood program, which has been a model for other districts, would be maintained despite the proposed school closing. We have every intention of holding on to that program, said Fitzsimons. There is no intention of disbanding any program or reducing it. We think we can replicate that model program in multiple sites.
The superintendent seemed open to the suggestion of a parent who said the elementary schools should enroll grades K through 2, and the others grades 3 through 5. That-s always a possibility, and certainly could be accommodated in the four schools, said Fitzsimons. We-ll have to take a look at that.
Robert Douglas, who served as chairman of the district-s building committee for two years when the group explored closing the Number Five School, suggested that Fitzsimons look back at the study and the potential benefits of getting a new library at the Cedarhurst site should the Number Five School close instead of the Number Four School.
I think you might want to go back and consider some of the things that we did over the course of two years, as opposed to over the course of this crisis that you-re going through and that the district is going through, said Douglas. The concept of turning the Number Five School into a fabulous library for the entire district and using greater managing techniques so that we don-t have North Woodmere [children] passing Number Six School to go to Number Five, and we don-t have Lawrence students passing Number One and Number Five to go to Number Six, would make some sense not only for the public school community but for our entire community. I think we could have a state-of-the-art library for the entire community. Public, private and retirees at Number Five School use the good facilities at Number Six, Number One and Number Two, and [we could] maintain a fabulous Number Four School.
One resident at the forum emphasized how special the Number Four School early-childhood program is to the district. You have something here which is beautiful, you have something here that is very unique, he said. Very few districts have something like this.
Fitzsimons stressed that the passage of the 2004-05 budget on May 18 is crucial in order for the recommendation for the consolidation plan to move forward. I feel very strongly that if this Board of Education does not signal to this community that it is serious about dealing with its resources, and particularly the space that it now currently has to maintain and operate, that we may be putting the budget at risk, said Fitzsimons. I do not believe this community and the education that we want for our children can survive another contingency budget.
Fitzsimons distributed a handout that broke down the components at each school. It showed that the district has 123 classrooms, with capacity for 2,460 students. With a projected 2004-05 elementary school enrollment of 1,660 students, there will be 800 empty seats.
We-re paying a price for maintaining and occupying that space, he said. It costs so much that you-ve experienced budget cutbacks in areas that directly affect children. You are not serving the children well when you have to maintain more space at the expense of doing away with programs.
Two examples of cutbacks given by Fitzsimons were a loss of an elementary school world languages class and the elimination of a full-time library media specialist in elementary school.
According to Fitzsimons, if the Number Four School were to close, the property on Wanser Avenue in Inwood would be leased. The special education school Crossroads and BOCES are two possible tenants for the site, he said.
Lawrence Central Council PTA President Nikki Greene-Douglas said two days after the meeting that despite some disagreement over the possibility of closing the Number Four School, there is common agreement on the need to consolidate. I think that it is appropriate that a consensus has developed in the community that a building has to be reallocated, said Greene-Douglas. The key challenge remains to select a building that will generate the most benefits for the entire community without interfering with the academic experience for the children.
