Parents sweat TUSD closure plan

Like many parents, Boykins is outraged with the decision and the Tucson Unified School District leaders who made it.

But at least he has an idea of where his daughter, Cierra, will attend school next year should the TUSD Governing Board finalize plans in April to shut Corbett Elementary School and three other campuses.

"Erickson (Elementary School) is 10 minutes away," he said. "She's going to Erickson."

The move might not be that simple.

Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer has announced where students from the schools recommended for closure would go next year, but only three smaller groups of students have their desks reserved.

"There's no guarantee," said Bryant Nodine, TUSD's district planner, when asked about Boykins' scenario.

Open enrollment is one option parents could turn to, because they could choose other schools in the 250-square-mile district for their students. But the sign-up ends Wednesday. Since the Feb. 12 decision to begin the process to close schools, 11 applications from the targeted campuses have been filed.

However, TUSD does not provide transportation for open-enrollment students, which makes the option less feasible — or impossible — for some parents.

On Tuesday, the TUSD Governing Board voted 3-2 to begin the process to close Corbett, Ochoa, Rogers and Wrightstown elementary schools.

Students from Ochoa, 101 W. 25th St., will be sent en masse to Safford Elementary, 200 E. 13th St.. Autistic students at Rogers Elementary, 6000 E. 14th St., will be sent to Wheeler Elementary, 1818 S. Avenida del Sol, and students enrolled in the Gifted and Talented Education program at Corbett, 5949 E. 29th St., will be sent to Kellond Elementary, 6606 E. Lehigh Drive.

Officials have otherwise identified receiver schools for each site recommended for closure but haven't determined which students will go where.

"We have a system," Deputy Superintendent Patti Lopez said. "It's just not complete yet."

Nodine will present TUSD officials with a boundary plan for which students will go where on Feb. 25, she said.

However, Nodine said the information will only be preliminary. The final determination will be solidified as public hearings take place throughout March, Nodine said. At the same time, TUSD is reviewing school attendance boundaries, and the committees charged with the research also will weigh in on how to divide relocated students.

Boykins said it would be "geographically stupid" for his daughter to be bused somewhere other than Erickson, 6750 E. Stella Road.

"He is looking from a logical point of view," Nodine said. "I would hope we, the committees, do the same."

The committees will try to devise a method that keeps students from crossing major intersections and not disperse neighborhood students to multiple schools.

"Then it comes down to the basic question: 'Will it work out with all the kids going to the school?' " Nodine said.

By Nodine's numbers, all the receiving schools have enough space to absorb relocated students. Still, the lack of specifics concerns parents.

"They need to give us the option to choose where we want our kids to go and give us transportation," Boykins said.

Last year, TUSD changed its open-enrollment policy, allowing students from across the district to apply to other schools that have open desks. However, the district's decades-old desegregation order keeps students from leaving TUSD boundaries.

Friday afternoon, TUSD officials were still processing elementary school applications for open enrollment but already had entered nearly 2,000 applications into a computer system for the automated lottery that will occur Wednesday evening.

Pam Fine, TUSD's director of school community services, estimates there will be about 4,000 open-enrollment applications for elementary schools.

Twenty-five families already had requested moves to or from the four schools targeted for closure, but the applications were pulled when the closures were first proposed in late January. TUSD is contacting the families to see what they want to do.

If a student applied to attend a school recommended for closure, the second and third choices are moved up, Fine said. If the schools aren't closed, applicants who applied previously are guaranteed a place, she said, as well as students now attending the schools, even if they applied elsewhere.

When asked what she would recommend to a parent facing possible closure, Fine said: "I would suggest if they want a school other than the ones their students will be sent to, to get their applications in."

But open enrollment isn't an option for some parents.

"We've always had that choice, but you have to provide transportation," said Kim Grimes, whose 8-year-old twins are in third grade at Corbett. "(Some) parents don't have a choice. They can either go where they can walk or where the district will provide transportation.

"They've given no time for people to research or look. The whole timeline is rushed," she said. "All these parents want to know which students are going where. We only know the GATE kids are going to Kellond.

"They say, 'As the process goes on, we'll have the answers.' Come on, we need answers now," Grimes said. "They're not giving parents enough information. It's bad enough we have to wait 60 days."

Once a district initiates the process of closing schools, it has to wait 60 days and receive public input before its board can vote to shut the schools.

As president of Corbett's Parent-Teacher Association, Grimes has heard concerns from parents, teachers and staff members. One big worry is the fact that while Pfeuffer has said students will go to schools with the same or better academic rating, there may be competition.

Grimes pointed out that Rogers is a highly performing school under Arizona Learns, the state's accountability assessment. Sewell Elementary, 425 N. Sahuara Ave., has an excelling label, while Wheeler Elementary is highly performing.

Grimes wants to know how the district will decide which students go to the better-performing school.

Still, some parents remain committed to keeping their schools open and don't see open enrollment as an option.

"Frankly, we're not interested," said J.D. Herron, who has children in third, first and pre-kindergarten classes at Rogers.

"We don't want to fall into the mind-set the school will close, because we're going to fight it to the end."

DID YOU KNOW ...

In January 1993, the TUSD Governing Board voted to close Catalina High School to save money. The plan was to keep it open for three years, then close it. The closure would have freed money for a new school on the growing Southwest Side.

However, the district's 1978 desegregation order required TUSD to obtain approval for school boundary changes and construction. U.S. District Judge Alfredo Marquez ruled that shutting Catalina would hinder desegregation efforts.

The board decided not to appeal and made plans to renovate Catalina instead.

All school closure plans remain subject to approval of a federal judge today, as well.

Source: Star archives