Earthblog

Last week’s story is the one I want to write. It’s hopeful. It’s a good story, heartwarming even. It starts with a budget crisis, includes the November ballot measures, a community coming together to support their children, and ends with its synopsis of Dr. Jerry Wilson’s statement following the January 25th Board of Education vote on the Poudre School District’s underutilized school recommendations.

That’s the story I want to write. Some people will cheer it on, some people will shake their heads and call it frivolous, delusional. If the story were true, parents who walk their kids to Beattie or Putnam or Lopez could still enjoy that precious half hour each day; parents whose kids are learning both English and Spanish at high levels at Irish would be glad to see that program continue; students and families participating in the IB World community of schools could still do so at Lincoln.

To be fully honest, I don’t even know if saving all our schools is possible. Looking over the pile of spreadsheets Ellen Laubhan has at the District’s offices on LaPorte, and through all the information made available on the website, I can’t do the math with millions of dollars and thousands of budget line items to save our schools. But, after going to the School Board Meeting on December 14th, talking to parents, students, and community members including John Lynn and Cheryl Distaso, Lynette Salzman (Principal at Irish), Ellen Laubhan (PSD Director of Communication Services), and Dr. Kevin Hahn (the Assistant Superintendent overseeing Elementary Schools), it’s the story I want to write.

The point was definitely not to raise false hopes; the thought is that maybe showing one idea of what the best possible outcome to this process might be, one idea of “the right thing to do,” might make it more achievable.

At the same time, it’s important to take a close look at what it means to close a neighborhood school. The third part in this series takes a broader view of several issues surrounding school closures.

In order to understand what it would mean to a neighborhood elementary school, we decided to look at Irish just as an example, as a representation of each of the schools at risk of closure. I realized I couldn’t visit all the schools targeted by the plan or even fairly summarize the pros and cons of their closure plans—you can read them online (http://www.psdschools.org/). So, the more manageable question we started with was, “what it would look like to close Irish Elementary?.”

Irish, like other neighborhood schools, is built on close connections between the community and the school. Small schools thrive this way, and this is why students thrive in small schools. As Lynette Salzman, Irish’s principal, notes, “Families are completely attached to Irish as their school. They love the dual language program as a strategy for learning for all children. This school is their home as it provides academic growth, along with social and emotional support. Every staff member at Irish Elementary is strongly committed to their work at this school. No one works at Irish with less than a heartfelt, strong commitment. We are focused on the students and the work we do with the students daily. ”

I learn quickly Irish isn’t just an example, I was wrong to think of the school in this way. The unique dual language program the school offers to North-side residents is different—only Harris Elementary offers a similar program. On a cold November day, Mike Juniper takes me with him to pick up his daughter Mira from kindergarten, and I get to meet her teacher Shaunda Stahl.

Shaunda describes Irish’s program this way, “the dual language program was not just made in response to help our Spanish speakers perform at high levels. A dual language program is not a dual language program if there is not as close to a balance of 50% Spanish speakers to 50% English speakers, because they need to be models for each other. If you have a larger majority in one class or the other, they’re not getting strong peer models, they’re not learning to take risks because they don’t see anyone else doing it.”

Mike’s passionate about how this program serves his daughter, who is a native English speaker. He says, “We have English language speakers learning 21st century skills, being bilingual, being bi-cultural, being bi-literate, those are skills that only two schools in the district offer.”

And yet, Irish finds itself on the closure list. The District’s process for examining underutilized schools frustrates Mike and Shaunda, and others I talk to including many of the nearly 300 parents who gathered for the Board meeting in December. They worry that the whole process is set up in numbers-based, numbers-only way not appropriately accounting for the value of schools like Irish. They feel redistricting, misinformation, public misconceptions, and stereotypes have affected choice-out numbers in unfair ways.

“We dispute those numbers to a degree,” Mike says, “but we also believe those numbers have been manipulated. They changed the boundaries. They took away a bunch of kids who want to be coming to this school and said ‘sorry we’re not going to transport you to this school anymore’.” Shaunda says this cost the school between sixty and eighty students, enough to push them up and off the underutilized school list.

It’s the misconceptions about the school that are harder to quantify. Mike says, “There’s a myth that our kids just get Spanish all day long and that’s absolutely not true.” He goes on to say, “Irish is performing really well. Our test scores are maybe slightly below the district average, but if you look at how much our students improve each year, for the people at the state who evaluate annual growth, next year, if they don’t close Irish, it is going to look like one of the best schools in the district. It already is.”

When I ask Assistant Superintendent Dr. Kevin Hahn about Irish’s performance, he cites this same data that has been documented at the state level. He says “Irish has done a great job with their academic growth, they have a nice way of demonstrating the growth data. It’s again how well our students are doing, increasing the growth from year to the next.” Dr. Hahn says this, and Irish’s dual language program, are being carefully considered as the district crafts its recommendation to the Board of Education.

I ask Dr. Hahn and Ellen Laubhan, the District’s Communication Director, why parents would choice-out of a high-performing, neighborhood school like Irish. Ellen Laubhan describes research into this question as providing no real clear insight into the factors impacting a parent’s decision to choice-out of their neighborhood school. She says, “We’ve studied school choice extensively. We’ve had R. and D. studies, we’ve done all kinds of things, and I thought finally we’re going to find out why parents choose a school, and it turns out its a number of factors— and it is those misperceptions, those misconceptions. People are coming from out of state and outside the community, and they don’t check out those schools.”

This is troubling since it’s one of the data points identifying underutilized schools. Especially, as Ellen Laubhan goes on to say, “And so it’s unfortunate that they don’t [check out their neighborhood schools and ask questions], it’s evidenced by those people who came to the meeting the other night to show that they like their neighborhood schools—it’s evidence that those schools work.”

What Irish has in common with other schools being considered for closure is that it educates our lower income students, and is located in one of our more diverse neighborhoods. It’s impossible to look at the closing of Irish, with it’s dual language program and not raise questions of social justice. As Shaunda Stahl summarizes it, “No families want their kids’ school closed, but when you close a school where their needs can’t be met somewhere else that’s when there’s injustice. You can’t close a school when you know those students will perform worse elsewhere, that’s where my injustice is.” Shaunda also adds that closing Irish won’t help the district’s low Hispanic graduation rate.

Ellen Laubhan and Dr. Hahn make it clear that the Board’s resolution was to address problems of efficiency, problems of under-utilization. Performance factors, the primary mission of the PSD system to “Educate... Every Child, Every Day” are factors, but poverty indicators like reduced lunch rate, or demographic information including ethnicity were not considered in identifying schools for closure.

Principal Salzman raises the hopeful question about what other options might be out there beside closing schools. She says, “I wonder about a process for considering other district-wide strategies for financial cuts besides closing schools. This concept is at the heart of impacting the learning of students. It is difficult to characterize the situation. I think I am too close to it and too deeply involved. I certainly want what is best for our students and their families. I feel strongly that maintaining the dual language instruction that has been in effect at Irish Elementary for some fifteen years is very important and that the student body core should remain together.”

Listening to Lynette Salzman, Shaunda Stahl, and the parents who speak out at the board meeting, I wonder if socioeconomic factors should be considered as reasons not to close schools. One parent raises the question about how much easier it might be for wealthier families to absorb the disruption and transportation costs. At the board meeting a parent from Beattie states, “I shouldn’t have to live in a $300,000 house to walk my kids to school.”

In any event, issues of social justice need to be addressed in the District’s recommendation. This is especially true if factors identifying these schools as underutilzed, like school-choice, may be, at worst, products of cultural bias in the broader community, or, at best, not fully understood. There are valid reasons to opt out of schools and unique programs like at Irish—one parent shared with me a bad visit they had at Putnam before choicing-out of that school— but it’s clear the value of neighborhood schools finds itself in direct conflict with the value of school choice.

I imagined the budgetary reality as well as the focus on school efficiency would quickly turn parents to argue for their school and against others, but this isn’t happening as far as I can tell. The real message I hear is not “Save Irish,” with the NIMBY subtext of “Close Putnam,” but “Save Our Neighborhood Schools,” our community has taken a stance of solidarity challenging the premises of the Board’s resolution, making the District’s job harder.

As Shaunda Stahl says, ”I don’t see the school closure process as a competition. I see it as an injustice for all schools, especially for the northside schools, and especially for our school because of the large number of kids that have so many needs that aren’t going to be met elsewhere. So I don’t think of it so much as a competition, but as what’s best for our kids—period.”

This is a values clash. The recommendations made, the final decision, even the shape of this process and discussion is teaching us what exactly our elected school board and professional administrators value. Simultaneously, Fort Collins families are working hard to demonstrate their values in a way those with power will recognize. Some of these values, some of these most important values are hard to represent statistically.

Back on that cold day in November there are a few light snowflakes in the air, I hear the bell sound inside the brick school. As I leave Irish with Mike and his daughter Mira, walking the short, quarter-mile to their house it becomes obvious this time together between parents and students, in Mike and his wife Angela’s case part of the reason the chose Irish and their home, is not insignificant. This choice has environmental and cultural dimensions, but the quality-of-life issue of getting to walk home with, or carry your kindergartner home in your arms is something that is not lost on me as we make our way through a crisp afternoon.