Dodge Middle School move to larger campus likely off

TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez notified Dodge staff and families on Monday the plaintiffs in the desegregation case have only agreed to cover $1 million for the move — about $3.7 million short of what Sanchez says is needed to provide students with what they deserve.

Saying the $1 million would only “scratch the surface” of what the facility needs to be on par with the current Dodge location on East Pima Street, Sanchez will ask the Governing Board to rescind its approval of the Dodge plan at a future meeting.

“Unfortunately, under the financial circumstances presented by the plaintiffs in this case, I believe the Governing Board should rescind its approval,” Sanchez said in the Dodge letter. “I cannot stand before staff, parents and families and say that moving children to a building that is in worse shape than their own is an improvement.”

The Governing Board approved moving Dodge to the vacant Townsend campus near North Craycroft Road in August in an effort to allow 260 more students to attend TUSD’s only A-rated middle school.

At the time, Sanchez told the board failing to move forward would be costly to the district, saying when parents can’t get their children into Dodge due to space constraints, they chose Basis — a competing charter school — instead.

The plan to expand Dodge was part of a comprehensive boundary plan required under the district’s decades-old desegregation order, which calls for campuses to be integrated, meaning one racial or ethnic group may not exceed 70 percent of a school’s enrollment.

When the plan was brought to the board for approval, the district reported that the move was expected to cost as much as $1.9 million to reopen, renovate and hire additional staff — a far cry from the number being presented now.

For Sylvia Campoy, a representative for the Latino plaintiffs, the misinformation from the TUSD administration is responsible for this mishap, not the desegregation plaintiffs.

“It had gone from about $1 million and quadrupled without any real explanation,” Campoy said. “If they got the figures wrong, they need to own up to that.”

The only reason provided, according to Campoy, was that the district’s former deputy superintendent of operations, Yousef Awwad, didn’t do the cost analysis correctly.

Campoy takes exception to that because normally an architect would have been brought in — someone familiar with construction rehab and disability accommodation restructuring — to conduct the cost analysis, she said.

“It’s very unfortunate because parents have been excited for this and the plaintiffs wanted this to happen,” Campoy said. “The (desegregation) special master, the Fishers and the Mendozas (plaintifs in the lawsuit) feel that in a way we were duped.”

Sanchez did not return a call for comment Tuesday but did say in the Dodge letter he felt the project aligns with the goals of the district’s plan to bring racial balance to it’s schools and should be “wholly supported with desegregation funds.”

Bringing the technology infrastructure up to date would cost $400,000, and that is just one small part of the project, Sanchez said.

To reopen the school, TUSD is required to bring it up to code. Any noncompliance in areas like access, electrical and sprinklers are no longer grandfathered in.

“Everyone involved in the process knew there would be would be costs associated with bringing Townsend’s 1956 campus up to 21st century standards,” Sanchez said.

While the plan to expand the already-integrated Dodge was lauded by the desegregation plaintiffs and community members, a number of existing Dodge families feared that the change could impact a successful model.

Sanchez encountered a similar problem earlier this year when his plan to use desegregation money for two early learning centers was rejected by the plaintiffs. Sanchez, however, was still able to bring those projects to fruition using other funding sources.