By Chastity Pratt Dawsey, Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki and Lori Higgins, Detroit Free Press
DETROIT — More than 7,500 Detroit children may have to change schools in the fall as a result of 23 proposed school closures and one relocation, according to a proposal to be publicly unveiled today.
In an unrelated announcement, Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, said that 600 teachers will get layoff letters as DPS wrangles with a $305-million deficit.
The mass closing would be the third this decade for DPS, which has shuttered 70 buildings as enrollment plummeted from 173,848 a decade ago to about 95,000 today. Another 30 of the district's roughly 200 schools could close in 2010.
Bobb said Wednesday that the proposed closure list resulted from an analysis of enrollment, building conditions, community partnerships and academic achievement. He expects to make a final decision on this year's closings by May 8.
Parents and students learning about the plan this morning expressed reservations about the changes, with some acknowledging the district's financial problems, but others saying they won't keep their kids in DPS next year.
"He didn't feel good," Masum Miah, 14, an eighth-grader at Cleveland Intermediate, said of his father Chicoat's reaction to the news that school would close. "I don't feel good. I won't know anybody there."
Masum added that he understands the district has to save money
Student Kiara Duncan, 13, a seventh-grader at Cleveland, was pessimistic.
"I don't want this school to close because I made a lot of friends. And if they turn all the kids to charter schools, we won't have … schools to go to."
Maceo Lloyd, whose kids — ages 16, 15 and 14 — all attend Cleveland, shook his head when a reporter told him this morning the school was slated to close.
"I hate it. I hate that you even came over telling me about it. It's a good school. There aren't that many fights. There's no guns, no shootings … nothing."
He added that he's not concerned about where the students from Cleveland will go because he now plans to send his kids to school in Macomb County next year instead of trying another DPS school.
At Northwest Early Childhood Center, Adriane Jackson learned about that school's planned closing as she dropped off her 4-year-old son Brandon for prekindergarten.
"That's really bad. This is one of the best schools for kindergarten and pre-K," she said.
Kids learn a lot at the school, she said, and she likes that it only serves children in the early grades.
As for MacDowell and Schulze, the elementary schools to which DPS said it will send students from Northwest ECC, Jackson said. "I don't even have any idea where they're at."
At Guyton Elementary, where supporters have fought off closings twice since 2005, parents are vowing to do so again.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," said Kristina Thomas, whose four kids — ages 10, 9, 6 and 4 — attend Guyton. "I'm trying to buy a house in this area so they can be closer to this school. This school is great. This is one of the schools that is the exception to the stereotype DPS has."
Donna Robinson, who attended Guyton as a child and now has a 7- and an 8-year-old attending it, said she doesn't want her children going to Robinson, where they'd be assigned next year if Guyton closes. She doesn't like the idea of having younger students in the same building as older ones.
"I guess I'm going to take them around where I live, which will be Chandler Park Academy," she said, referring to a charter school.
Margaret Littles, president of Guyton's Local School and Community Organization, said she will be at tonight's school board meeting.
"We're fighters," she said of Guyton parents. "We're going to fight again. We're going to start this morning."
No comments:
Post a Comment