At a community meeting Monday night regarding a Dallas ISD plan to close Bonham Elementary School, parents were asked to write their questions on 3-by-5 note cards. Northeast Learning Community senior executive director Lisa Deveaux then attempted to answer questions written on the cards, which were handed to her.
Parents and educators were not allowed to make comments, and follow-up questions were discouraged. This was a Q&A, but it was not a discussion.
Frustration among Bonham supporters was palpable. A few shouted questions and comments to Deveaux, who first ignored them, and then implored parents to set an example of civil discourse for the children present. One parent became disgusted with the Q&A process and stormed out, saying, “You’re insulting my intelligence.”
District 8 Trustee Adam Medrano, whose district includes Bonham and two other schools slated for closure, told the crowd he intends to vote against the DISD school consolidation plan, which would close 11 schools in an effort to save $11.5 million. The board will vote on the proposal at its 5:30 p.m. meeting Thursday, Jan. 26. A public hearing is set for 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
The bulk of the savings — $9 million — would come from the loss of 177 jobs the closures would cause. At the same time, DISD says it will attempt to reassign all of those employees. The district has almost 11,000 employees, and they lose about 800 a year when employees retire or accept jobs out of the district. The savings in this plan is due to increased class sizes. The elementary school standard is one teacher for every 22 students, which is the ratio at Bonham. Under the school consolidation plan, DISD elementary school classrooms would include 27 students for every one teacher. In other words, even though Bonham is an exemplary, Blue-Ribbon school, it is on the chopping block because it is less efficient than other DISD elementary schools.
A few questions were answered:
Q. Why doesn’t the district instead close 11 of its 33 academically unacceptable campuses?
A. Because those schools receive money from the federal government, so closing them wouldn’t save as much money as closing schools that perform at least adequately.
Q. Why not close a school that has a higher payroll, such as Lakewood Elementary School?
A. Because the population of Lakewood elementary is much higher. Bonham is at risk of closure because it serves just 230 students, compared with nearly 730 at Lakewood.
Q. Is the district closing Bonham because it is valuable real estate?
A. No. Trustee Mike Morath said Bonham would not be sold “as long as I’m on the board.” If the neighborhood gains population, and a school is again needed in the neighborhood, it would be too expensive to buy another property there.
Q. What would happen to the building if the school closes?
A. It would not be used for at least one year. Deveaux said she doesn’t know what would happen to the building beyond that.
Q. How much will it cost to maintain the vacant building?
A. About $30,000 a year.
Q. What will happen to the teachers at Bonham?
A. They will be put into a hiring pool and principals can consider them for job openings.
Q. Will employees of the 11 closed schools get preference over newly certified teachers?
A. Deveaux said that is a good suggestion.
Q. If Bonham is closed, some students will have to cross busy Greenville Avenue to get to their new school, Robert E. Lee. Will DISD install crosswalks to make the trip safe for pedestrian students?
A. That is something the school board will have to work out with the city.
One parent, the loud one who stormed out, made a very good point. These school closures would save less than 1 percent of DISD’s $1.4 billion budget. Why make such drastic, unsettling changes, why close one of the district’s four Blue-Ribbon schools, all to save 1 percent of the budget? I could cut out Starbucks and save 1 percent of my household budget. I wouldn’t, instead, stop paying my gas bill and take cold showers every morning. The school district needs to cut about $38 million from its 2012-13 budget because of state funding cuts. That’s about 2.5 percent of its budget. At home, I could cancel the cable bill to save that.
Perhaps that’s oversimplifying it, but I think the board could look harder at where to cut budgets before it goes closing good schools and uprooting educators that have proven their success. It seems like a very poor business decision.
