Last night, the school district’s facilities steering committee recommended two scenarios to the school board: one that closes Hoover Elementary, and one that closes Hoover, Lincoln, and Hills elementaries. Here are some of my immediate reactions (related posts here and here):
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I’m against closing any of the district’s schools, but if there were clear public support for doing so, I could accept it more easily. Conversely, even if I thought school closings were a good idea, I’d be reluctant to impose them on a public that has given every indication that it disagrees. This is particularly true given that hundreds of people sat through three-hour-long meetings, at the district’s urging, for the chance to have input into the process, and repeatedly preferred the scenarios in which no schools were closed.
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At the final workshop, the district’s consultants did everything they could to emphasize the advantages of closing schools – yet still the participants preferred the scenario that closed no schools. There is no plausible way to argue, after that extended process, that the public is just misinformed and would come around if they only knew the facts. There a simply a difference between what the public values and what the steering committee and its consultants value.
To ignore public preference in those circumstances seems not only wrong but asking for difficulty. Whatever long-term plan the district settles on, it will take years to implement, and it will have to survive several school board elections. Closing schools without public consensus or buy-in, and contrary to the clear preference expressed at all the workshops, is bound to generate ongoing controversy and prolong these seemingly endless disputes.
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I can’t help thinking that we will never, ever get past these discussions about buildings and boundaries and start talking meaningfully about curriculum.
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Take a look at the composition of the steering committee: Of the twenty members, only two are there because of their status as parents. Five are there as district employees. Seven are area elected officials. The Building Trades Council, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Iowa City Area Development Group each get a vote. The consultants themselves get two votes!
That’s what happens when school officials think in terms of representing “stakeholders” rather than their actual constituents. (See this post.) Would a committee drawn largely from district PTOs, or even randomly from registered voters, have reached a similar conclusion?
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From a comment at my other blog: “This whole process has been run like we are both a declining enrollment district and have an unlimited pile of money to build all new schools. I just don't see how we can afford to close structurally sound buildings. We'll be spending tens of millions of dollars just to break even on elementary capacity.”
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Here’s a closer look at the numbers from the final community workshop, which hundreds of people attended. The participants reviewed four scenarios. Scenario 1 would not close any schools. Scenario 2 would close Hills. Scenario 3 would close Hills and Lincoln. Scenario 4 would close Hills, Lincoln, and Hoover.
When asked which Scenario they preferred overall, approximately 62% chose Scenario 1, which would not close schools. (The district did not release actual numbers; I’m estimating from the bar graphs they released.) Only 38% chose scenarios that would close any schools. Only 26% chose a scenario that would close Hoover.
When asked specifically about which elementary school scenario they preferred, people expressed similar preferences: 61% chose Scenario 1, which would not close schools. Only 39% chose scenarios that would close schools, and only 22% chose a scenario that would close Hoover.
When people were asked how they would improve their favorite scenario – which, for Scenario 1, was practically an invitation to add a school closing – five groups (out of thirty-five) chose Scenario 1 but with Hoover closing, while two groups preferred Scenario 4 but without a Hoover closing. Five groups mentioned exploring the option of closing Hoover but stopped short of endorsing it. In sum, twenty-two of the thirty-five groups (63%) preferred scenarios under which Hoover would remain open, without expressing any ambivalence about it.
In an election, numbers like that would be considered a landslide. Yet the steering committee voted to send two scenarios to the board, both of which would close Hoover, and one of which would close three schools. So much for the community workshops.
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How many people would have bothered coming to those three-hour-long meetings if they had known how little their opinions would matter? How many will bother attending similar meetings in the future?
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Of course, the school board makes the final decision, and it can pay as much or as little attention to the steering committee’s recommendations as it chooses. It can be faithful to the steering committee or to the public input, but not to both. I do hope board members won’t claim that they have an obligation to choose one of the plans recommended by the committee – when the committee felt no such obligation to the participants at the workshops.
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In the last school board election, in which five of the current seven members were elected, none of the candidates proposed closing any schools. Virtually all of them voiced support for neighborhood schools.
It will be interesting to see how many candidates for this September’s school board election will support closing any schools. So far I know of none who do. Before we close any schools, you’d think we might wait until at least one school board candidate can get elected on that platform.
Chris Liebig blogs about local and national education issues at A Blog About School. You can also follow him on Twitter.