Closure Plan Draws Heated Objections
Fear of Losing Students to Charters Cited

By V. Dion Haynes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 2, 2006

They crammed into a musty fifth-floor room without air conditioning for 3 1/2 hours yesterday to give the D.C. Board of Education a piece of their minds about a proposal to close or merge an estimated 30 schools.

The crowd of about 100 parents, teachers and activists filled all the seats in the school board chambers, and nearly 40 of them took a turn launching a three-minute attack.

Some criticized specific elements of the proposal, such as one that would generate money for the cash-strapped system by leasing space to fast-growing charter schools. And others offered impassioned arguments about why their schools should be spared from the chopping block.

"I'm upset that Sharpe [Health School] is even being considered," said Cynthia Bland, who has a daughter at the special education facility in Northwest Washington.

"These are God's ambassadors from Heaven," she said. "We need to take care of children with special needs. They matter, too."

The hearing was intended to solicit feedback from the public on Superintendent Clifford B. Janey's draft criteria for closing schools. After the session, dozens of people stayed for another 2 1/2 hours, dividing into focus groups in two ninth-floor conference rooms, where they used hand-held devices to register their opinions on the nuts and bolts of the draft. Janey plans to use the data to devise the final version of the criteria.

But the earlier session generated the most sparks.

The speakers expressed dismay over a school board decision to eliminate 1 million square feet of excess space by Aug. 28 and 2 million more two years later. The overall reduction would be achieved by consolidating and closing buildings.

Enrollment in the District's school system has shrunk by about 10,000 students in the past five years, and officials have said the cuts are necessary to adjust space accordingly. Janey is planning to list the first group of schools this month and the second group next month.

Although the school system has not identified any schools, Janey recently set enrollment standards that could leave about 70 schools -- nearly half those in the system -- vulnerable to consolidation or closure. To be considered "viable," an elementary school must enroll 320 students, a middle school 360 and a high school 600.

School officials said money saved from the reduction of space -- an amount that hasn't been determined -- would be invested in the classroom.

Janey tried to allay fears yesterday, emphasizing that no decision has been made on which schools to cut. "You can influence how the work gets done to a standard of quality that you can support," he said.

Some speakers said that not enough care and time was being devoted to the plan and that they feared it would accelerate the departure of students from the traditional public schools into public charter schools, which now enroll 17,500 students in 51 facilities.

Gina Arlotto, co-founder and president of Save Our Schools, an advocacy group that opposes charter schools, said, "The result will be to destabilize the system, driving more students out further."

Absalom Jordan, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 8 and a member of the restructuring team at Simon Elementary School in Southeast, blamed the school board's out-of-boundary policy for the high number of schools with low enrollment in his community that are susceptible to closure.

"If programs, dollars and [high-quality] facilities were provided, we wouldn't have to go out of the ward," Jordan said.

Numerous speakers discussed the part of Janey's proposal that encourages a dozen underenrolled schools to voluntarily consolidate.

Sherrie Britt, a teacher at Adams Elementary School in Northwest, said she opposed discussion about her school consolidating with nearby Oyster Elementary. "We don't consider the merger as a viable solution to low enrollment," she said.

But Sarah Johnson, who serves on the restructuring team at Adams and also opposes the idea, nevertheless said a collaboration could save the school and help children from Southeast who attend it.

"Do you put them back into neighborhood schools that are not adequate?" Johnson asked.