Charlene Cook · Audiology Tech at Fort Carson Oh its declining enrollment....BS!
Kristina Iodice · Top Commenter · Works at The Gazette, Colorado Springs
What do you think the reasoning is?
Amber Escobedo
Crazy thats alot of schools.
Spydra Webb · Top Commenter · William J. Palmer High School
Kristina Iodice, one needs merely to go back and read about the 2009 school closures to deduce what's really taking place here; the District swore then that closing eight elementary schools and the Irving middle school would save tax payers $3 million -- but when all was said and done, the million$ purportedly saved were spent retro-fitting certain buildings to accommodate their changed occupancies.
Case in point was the West middle school building, which underwent extensive, expensive changes to make room for the new K-8 setup; now, the experts are re-recommending a West re-revamp to make it a K-5 elementary school -- does this make any sense? The District spent much of the purported "savings" on increased transportation costs to bus children past their now-shuttered neighborhood school; the beneficent-but-constantly "cash strapped" District also sold off or leased certain valuable properties for the outrageous sum of $1.00.
"There goes the neighborhood." See for yourselves how the primarily low-income areas directly impacted by that rash of school closures four years ago have benefitted from them since; you will find they HAVEN'T. Schools situated at the very nexxus of those neighborhoods were boarded up, vandalized, and left to decay like some vacant, concrete carcasses...passed by busloads of children on their way to and from schools that are far beyond walking distance of their homes.
The rationale behind school closures is to allow the District to make capital improvements and pet project changes at certain of its buildings without having to ask voters for a tax increase. It is also to allow the District to condense and confine its low-income student populations to schools that will eventually be closed due to lower test scores and "performance" issues. "Declining Enrollment" will be a catchphrase bandied about, supported by costly "Building Capacity Studies"; the public will be flooded with ever-changing forecasts, recommendations, and numbers designed to wash over and confuse us.
Concerned individuals will be permitted to work themselves into a lather, and to blow off their steam at "Community Engagement" events, where parents, students and teachers alike will pour out their heart-rending pleas to save their neighborhood schools from the chopping block; what those well-intentioned souls don't realize is that the school board members staring back at them blankly are all wearing earplugs.
The truth is that the decisions have already been made; the District is now merely setting the stage for the useless drama that's about to ensue. Board president Jan "Say Cheese" Tanner is directly complicit in every D11 school closure that's taken place over the past twelve years, as well as forcing the Gay-Straight Student Alliances and bully-proofing programs that have become part and parcel of our children's educational experience -- now *there's* a budget cut we'll *never* hear the leftist public school experts recommend. Think of the Mega-Rich, Interest-Conflicted Mrs. Tanner each time you bite into a slice of Dominos pizza...and be sure to tell her "thank you."
From a cursory review of the materials on the website, the consolidations did not improve achievement for the majority of students. The are trying to put into place more of the things people did not want, like the K-2 and 3-5 grade proposal, which will effective trap kids at the 2nd grade level until the rest of their cohort catches up and will also have 3-5 graders thinking they need to act like middle schoolers. They owe the entire first class at Galileo a HUGE apology as not only are they not making good on promises for their near future but they will close Wasson and make kids transfer to a different educational experience (did you catch where this innovation school didn't get enough kids to fill AP classes?) for the crucial junior and senior years. Oh, but that's going to be less than 250 kids -- twice the size of an elemenatry scheduled for closure, so oh, nevermind. Plus, the idea of taking Wasson and making it a K-14 or 7-14 is both endearing and laughable--they can't give kids meaningful skills-whether college bound or workplace--so they should have 14 years instead of 12? If PPCC wants the Wasson space, I'm sure D11 will be contacted. Isn't D11's core business educating K-12 students? The problem is the curriculum and the discipline, along with the randomness of which buildings they fix when and the scattershot system of which ES, MS and HS offer a continuity of programs. Oh, and newflash--not every kid is enamored with space, the S in STEM stands for science not space. Your statement of gathering together all the lower performing areas into one school destined for failure and federal takeover (or however that works) is an interesting one. Don't you think it is very much planned that the first meeting is at Doherty, when that area has been "promised" an addition to Scott? (Huh, they need an addition to a school that permits in students and has shown declining enrollment since 2008?) Start in the area where there will be no resistance and it will be tougher for the central area people to come out? I suspect the process will look a lot like last time and they are having a press conference at 1 on 12/3 so that the Gazette can report that the meetings are not for people to be heard as to the impact on you personally but to get your imput on the overall good of the plan. The plan makes the system look like it is imploding, which is a very scary thought for anyone who cares about public education, regardless of the area of the district or the status of their children. Did you catch the FB poster who thought they should just split up D11 and have the surrounding districts annex it? It's an interesting thought.
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