March 9, 2009, 8:30 a.m.
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
The School Board and Superintendent want to demolish Roosevelt Elementary. I disagree.
(Disclosure: Although I did not attend Roosevelt myself, and am neither a Roosevelt parent nor a "Myrtle Orchard Neighborhood" resident, I do live in the adjacent "Melrose Neighborhood," which also looks to Roosevelt as its "neighborhood school.)
From 1998 to 2001 I served as a member of the Iowa City Community School District School Board.
Since that time, while I have of course maintained an interest in K-12 education generally, in this country and beyond, and in our District in particular, I have mostly maintained a silence.
Having served on the Board I have some sympathy for those holding the job of which I once said, "well, it may not pay anything, but at least you get a lot of grief." It's not my desire to casually add to that grief.
But the District's recent decision (something between an "inclination" and what some insiders report as being "a done deal") to tear down Roosevelt Elementary School caused me to attend a public meeting last Saturday, March 7, and to publish this blog entry today.
One of the features of Saturday's gathering were small group meetings at which we were to list what we saw as the "pros" and "cons" of the Roosevelt demolition. The group I was in noted the following (that is, this is not necessarily my personal list):
Pros: the proposal brought the community together to talk about K-12 education in general and socio-economic issues in particular (the disparity between schools regarding the percentages of "free-and-reduced lunch" (i.e., low income) students).
Cons:
Student safety and walking distance. Many Roosevelt students would need to walk farther and along more dangerous routes (e.g., busy street crossings) to reach a different school. They will be farther from downtown cultural events.
Parental participation. Parental participation in schools enhances their children's education -- some say it is the single most important factor. Parental participation is increased when parents can easily walk to school. This is especially true for many of the low income parents whose children attend Roosevelt, parents who may not even have cars. Increased distance will tend to further remove these parents from connection with their children's activities.
Insufficient system-wide planning, public participation, and diversity balance. Diversity balance requires redrawing all school boundaries throughout the District, not just those for two or three schools. To plan a new school (Crossings), knowing that it will be 40% low income (the District average is 28%) seems contrary to the Board's professed goal of improving balance. The Board needs to plan for construction of new schools beyond five years. It needs to provide for more public participation on the front end of this planning.
Uneconomic. With new schools costing millions, to renovate Roosevelt for $900,000 is a cheap price to pay for a "new" school. The "substitute Roosevelt" at the "Crossings" location may be subject to the same kind of cost overruns suffered by the Van Allen school -- making renovation of Roosevelt an even better bargain. Especially in these economic times does it seem wasteful in the extreme to choose this time to demolish a neighborhood school only to have to spend millions on another school to replace it. Moreover, the cost of demolition is not inconsequential and will either be an added cost to the District if it intends to use the property for some other purpose, or a reduction in the value of the property if it is sold to developers.
Flexibility in renovation costs. The study of Roosevelt renovation costs identifies levels of priority in tasks. If only the highest priority renovations are made the costs could be even less than the $900,000 referred to above. Lower priority renovations could be done later, in better economic times, while still permitting the building to be used. On the other hand, if every possible change and improvement is made, and additions to the building are constructed, obviously the costs could range upward of $5 or 6 million.
Failure to consider wide range of options; e.g., possibility of Roosevelt-Horn linkage such as K-3 in one school and 4-6 in the other (as both schools are relatively close). The small group making this list felt that the Board had not done an adequate or creative job of considering all the options that would include the preservation of Roosevelt.
Removal of family resource center. Roosevelt provides a Family Resource Center for a student population in need of one. It would be lost (or at least there is no clear plan for providing one) for these students following Roosevelt's demolition.
Transition problems. There would be a two-year delay getting benefits to current Roosevelt students.
Finally -- and I deliberately list it "finally" here because while it involves values that indirectly impact on people of all ages currently a part of the "Roosevelt family" it is not "educational" in the limited sense --
the adverse impact on the "Melrose-Orchard" and "Melrose" neighborhoods. There is reason to believe that if Roosevelt is abandoned by the ICCSD the nine-acre plot would be acquired by developers who would fill it with condos, apartment buildings, or stand-alone homes. This would be a double whammy for two Iowa City neighborhoods that are already fragile. (Melrose Neighborhood is subject to constant invasion by the University from the north.)
A "neighborhood" is in many ways defined by the existence of its "neighborhood school" (rather than the other way around). For a neighborhood to lose its neighborhood school is an enormous whammy to its identity. This is only made worse when developers are permitted to take over an open, green, distinctive location and structure and turn it into more of the same-old, same-old that has already caused a loss of neighborhood "character." (There is, for example, a nature trail through a wooded ravine on the Roosevelt property, a kind of park, used by neighborhood residents as well as Roosevelt children.)
The above are points made by members of the small group I attended -- points I agree with for the most part, but were not necessarily my suggestions.
There were many more points made by reporters for other groups that will, hopefully, soon be transcribed and available on the District's Web site.
To them I would add a couple more.
Other schools, other neighborhoods. Roosevelt, built in the early 1930s, is certainly not Iowa City's oldest school. If it is to be demolished should we assume those other older schools, which also need remodeling, will be torn down as well? In that case, all the concerns about Roosevelt -- and the impact on its neighborhood/s -- will only be multiplied many times over. And, if they are not to be torn down, what is the rationale for choosing only Roosevelt? Is it possible that schools in more affluent neighborhoods, populated by influential parents, such as Lincoln, have been better maintained over the years than a school like Roosevelt, with its less affluent and influential parents?
SILO promises. Promises were made by the School Board at the time of the District citizens' vote to increase their taxes to provide the District SILO funds for new schools. In addition to new school construction, the vote passed in large measure (one can safely assert) because of promises that the money would be used to refurbish and remodel the old schools. There was no mention of the destruction of Roosevelt -- or any other school for that matter -- indeed, quite the opposite. It is troubling that the Board would now go back on its word.
Development. I hate to even mention this, and I'm certainly not asserting any wrongdoing, but it can't go without comment.
This plan hits a double for local developers.
The Cardinal Road/Crossing development (which, in my opinion, should have been retained by the City/County as greenbelt land in the first place) will receive an enormous economic boost by being able to tell potential home buyers that their children will be able to attend, within walking distance, one of Iowa City's newest, and most modern schools. That's worth a lot in an escalation in home prices.
Moreover, the demolition of Roosevelt opens up for the same, or other, developers the opportunity to buy, develop and sell off one of the most prime pieces of land on the West side of town.
I'm not suggesting Roosevelt's demolition, and the new Camp Cardinal ("Crossings") school, are being proposed for that reason -- let alone anything worse. But when public entities (in this case, a school board) are involved in creating millions of dollars of private profit (for, in this case, developers), while destroying a neighborhood school, dealing a heavy blow to two neighborhoods, and throwing the burden on the backs of the children and parents least able to represent themselves, it does deserve a very, very close look.
Economic downturn impact on Camp Cardinal development. The Camp Cardinal housing development was planned before the recent economic downturn. Home sales are never a slam dunk in the best of times. And these are not the best of times. Some consideration needs to be given to the possibility/probability that the "Crossings" school might end up finding itself to be a "neighborhood school" without a neighborhood.
_______________
* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
technorati tags:
political news | news | world news
More at: News 2 Cromley
No comments:
Post a Comment