Neto's Tucson: Brichta closing erases more history

Now, for the first time in many years, there will be no school named after Tucson's pioneering educator.

"I feel sad," Carol Brichta, a great-great-granddaughter of Augustus Brichta, said hours before the board meeting. "Tucson always seems to do away with its history."

Brichta, my next-door neighbor, appeared before the board Dec. 10 at one of several public hearings at Catalina Magnet High School to urge the board not to close Brichta or any other school.

She told the board that history is repeating itself.

In 1868, Augustus Brichta accepted the job as Tucson's first teacher. He had 55 pupils, all Mexican boys, who sat on benches in a dirt-floor schoolroom.

But the cash-starved town closed the school after six months. The last two months as teacher, Brichta went unpaid.

After the school closed, the Territorial Legislature debated funding for a new public school. Several years passed before the Legisla-ture appropriated money for a school. Tucson's second teacher, John Spring, was hired.

(A TUSD school carried his name, but John Spring Middle School, which previously had been Dunbar School, closed in 1978.)

Like Augustus Brichta, Spring quit his job because of low pay and large class size.

Today, TUSD wrestles with a $17 million deficit. Closing the schools will narrow the gap by $4 million.

More cuts will come as state funding remains stagnant or is cut further.

"It hurts the kids," said Brichta.

It is more than seeing her family name disappear from Brichta school, which opened in 1960 at 2110 W. Brichta Drive on the west side. There will be a bigger cost to the community with the school closures.

The other schools are Carson Middle, Corbett Elementary, Fort Lowell/ Townsend K-8, Hohokam Middle, Howenstine High Magnet, Lyons Elementary, Maxwell Middle, Menlo Park Elementary, Schumaker Elementary and Wakefield Middle. Saved from the ax were Manzo, Sewell and Cragin elementary schools.

Two years ago the district eliminated nine schools, exacting a similar public reaction. It will cost TUSD about $100,000 to close the 11 schools and thousands more a year to maintain empty buildings if the district does not sell the properties.

Brichta, like other TUSD residents, suggested the district will do more damage to families and neighborhoods by closing the schools. The community loses its neighborhood anchors. The schools often serve as community connectors.

"The district is starting from the bottom, cutting its way to the top," said Brichta.

While Brichta is not a classroom teacher, three sisters, several cousins and an aunt either are or have been public school teachers and principals. Her aunt Lorraine Aguilar, a great-granddaughter of Augustus Brichta, is a longtime TUSD activist.

"I hear their stories, their struggles," said Brichta, who graduated from Cholla High School.

We'll continue to hear the struggles of public school students, their families and classroom teachers. And while the TUSD board majority and administration believe they did the right thing in closing the schools, we won't know the real repercussions.

But as our schools disappear, so do pieces of Tucson's history.

Ernesto "Neto" Portillo Jr. is editor of La Estrella de Tucsón. He can be reached at (520) 573-4187 or at netopjr@azstarnet.com