Consultants have recommended that Mann Elementary School on Juniata Street be closed. Emily Rasinski | Post-Dispatch
The final bell may toll for 27 of St. Louis Public Schools’ 87 buildings, some immediately and others over the next several years. That’s the advice from MGT of America, consultants hired to evaluate the district’s facilities.
MGT’s recommendations are based on bricks and mortar, dollars and cents and operating efficiencies. That was the job the company was paid to do.
But the Special Administrative Board that governs the district has a larger duty to the public. It cannot rely solely on the consultant’s report when it decides which schools are eliminated.
Much more is at stake than the mere disposition of district property.
These buildings are public assets and landmarks vital to the fabric of neighborhoods. And some are brilliant examples of historic architecture.
Moreover, their value as facilities to educate children might not be limited to how they can be used by a centrally administered public school system. For better and worse, public education in this community consists of more than traditional schools. It also includes charter schools, which are hungry for facilities.
The report is a dense, 160-page-plus document that contains recommendations that would radically alter the city’s school landscape over the next 10 years. It would change how, where and how far children would have to travel each day.
The report measures and assigns ratings to ways in which each building is used. The factors include operating efficiency and suitability to serve the needs of children in coming years. These criteria are logical, the data are valuable and the due diligence indispensable to making informed decisions.
Clearly, some schools must close. The district faces a daunting budget deficit of $36 million. The financial problems are fueled in part by costs of staffing and maintaining multiple buildings at just 40 to 60 percent capacity.
The high number of closings has been dictated, in part, by MGT’s dim view of the district’s prospects. It assumed that St. Louis Public Schools student enrollment (already down from 43,850 to 26,405 over the past 10 years) will drop another 25 percent over the next decade, to just under 20,000.
The public benefits from this conservative analysis. The board must know its best options for worst cases.
But the board also has a duty to leaven its decisions with information from the community, not just from consultants.
Among the members of the public who attended community meetings as part of the planning process, 67 percent considered historic preservation of school buildings to be “important” or “very important.”
This doesn’t mean the district must “save” architecturally prominent properties that no longer suit its purposes. But the district does have a duty to act reasonably, diligently and creatively to protect these buildings and permit their productive reuse — recognizing, as St. Louis Landmarks Association aptly notes, that they serve as “irreplaceable institutional and architectural anchors” to many neighborhoods.
The rise of charter schools has contributed to the decline in traditional school enrollment. But the district’s neighborhood-be-damned approach of imposing deed restrictions that prevent buildings’ rebirth as charter or private schools is not the best way to advance the public interest.
The district has a chance to reshape its image by making the most of buildings it no longer needs, rethinking its relationship with charter schools and broadening its leadership role. The Special Administrative Board should put public education and neighborhood stability ahead of protecting turf.
Ms. Wessling – Aren’t you one of the school board members? If so, you would be wise to think long and hard about Nick Kasoff’s comment because he is 100% correct.
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Tear ‘em down. Their carbon footprints are huge.
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Katherine – For every parent who is “beating on the doors of the administration trying to send their kids to SLPS” there are ten parents who are moving out of the city because of the schools, and a thousand more who would consider living there were it not for the schools. Considering the widely known, well documented failure of the SLPS, there’s no credibility for the person claiming that it is a successful, popular district that is only failing because of bad consultants and an insensitive board. Give me a break!
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The report is by paid consultants who were tasked not to improve our children’s education, but to provide a “neutral” opinion that would justify closing schools. It is really interesting to compare the enrollment capacity numbers for schools that MGT came up with against past assessments of such. Suddenly buildings can hold hundreds more children than they could just a few years ago, and the greater the capacity, of course, the lower they can say the enrollment percentage is. It is not clear at all that some schools must close.
Further, if the report is honestly assessing buildings for educational suitability, why would a charter want a school that is considered deficient for educational purposes?
A group of parents at one of the city magnet schools has been diligently working on a plan to expand their school. These are middle class, educated parents who are involved in their children’s education. They are coming to the district with a well developed plan and with families who are announcing their commitment to send their children to SLPS–familes who have left the district, or plan to, who would return/stay if they can get this worked out. Shouldn’t that be a good thing? Shouldn’t the SAB and Dr. Adams be excited to see that kind of energy around supporting SLPS? Why won’t they meet with these families? Don’t they continually say parental involvement and input is key? Actions speak louder than words. While parents are beating on the doors of the administration trying to send their kids to SLPS, the businessmen and consultants announce that enrollment will decline and schools must close.
What will reshape the district’s image is to focus on providing good education, not making real estate deals. Good education is not provided for in this plan. The SAB is about to show us what their priorities truly are. For the sake of the children of this city, I hope they show us they care about education, not making friends with politicians. Try making friends with the parents instead. We are much better friends and will be much more helpful.
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You’re absolutely right, much more is at stake than the mere disposition of District property. The welfare and impact on the children attending those schools should be seriously considered as well. MGT has stated in that long 160-page document that the first priority is “improving student learning.” Yet two Special Separate Day Schools, Gallaudet School and Nottingham CAJT are also on the closure list for Phase 1. It is considered traumatic for a normal child to have to change schools. For children with special needs it can mean the difference between continued progress and a regression from which the child may never recover.
Whenever the squeeze is put on for funds Special Education is always one of the first appendages to bleed. The closure of these two schools will result in leaving only one Special Separate Day School in the entire District, Gateway Michael. The MGT recommendation is for Gallaudet students to be relocated to Gateway Michael where there is a single open classroom to accomodate them, and Nottingham CAJT students are to return to Central VPA from where they were transferred years ago. I find it odd that Central VPA’s scores in that big MGT report are absent too not in one table but in every table. Both these sites are slotted to go through major construction which is not an environment these special education children will tolerate well. The Gateway IT building is to be eventually demolished and repurposed as a central athletic and performance site with no estimate of cost, after the building is used as a swing space bouncing children from other schools while they undergo construction and such, and Central VPA is due for whopping $30,096,000 renovation.
As the parent of one of these special education children I only hope someone gets a clue.
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