Board of Education to vote on boundary issue Tuesday

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By MARGARET REIST / Lincoln Journal Star

Tuesday is B-day.

That would be boundary day, when the Lincoln Board of Education is expected to vote on revised attendance areas that could close two schools, shift well over 20  boundaries districtwide and will add three new attendance areas to accommodate new schools.

It hasn’t been an easy ride.

View Slideshow

Hawthorne Elementary third-graders(L-R) Reilly Stoddard, Plar Phillippi and Lyra Hubl along with second-grader Makayla Bennett enjoy their lunch recess on Tuesday. (Robert Becker)

A Board of Education planning committee, whose meetings are not open to the public, discussed attendance areas for two months before floating one elementary and two middle school proposals to the full board in July.

The biggest surprise to many: two of the proposals would close Hawthorne Elementary and Dawes Middle School.

The third — driven by board member Kathy Danek, who strongly opposes closing either school but especially the middle school in the heart of her northeast district — left Dawes open.

In the ensuing months, the board held several public meetings, and several other proposals have surfaced, all of them versions that would keep Dawes open.

The final recommendations the board subcommittee made to the full board — with Danek dissenting — closed both schools.

The board could adopt the planning committee findings, make amendments to them or adopt a completely different proposal.

Opponents of closing the schools have organized meetings, crunched their own numbers, canvassed their neighborhoods and met with school board members.

They argue that both schools have effective programs, that they are a vital part of their neighborhoods and that the growing district can’t afford to close two schools.

School board members who support the proposals say the district could better use the buildings for other purposes, that the small number of students living in the attendance areas could easily be shifted to nearby schools and be served just as well there, and that the district’s growth isn’t happening in the Dawes and Hawthorne areas.

The process also has become a flash point.

Opponents have criticized the board for not having a more public discussion about the prospect of closing schools, before voter passage last year of a $250 million bond issue being used to build three new schools and add space to several others.

Board members and district officials say they have openly discussed the possibility. They point to a citizen task force report that recommends the district consider closing underused schools, specifically naming Hawthorne; and a meeting before the bond issue at which district officials, school board and task force representatives talked with Hawthorne parents about the possibility.

Capacity

In the debate over school attendance areas, everybody’s crunching numbers.

Capacity. Enrollment. Growth. Here are some of the numbers floating around:

* LPS officials include on their proposal maps the capacity of each school, along with the number of students living in the attendance areas. Based on those numbers, northeast Lincoln school capacities — were Dawes closed — vary from 100.5 percent at Goodrich to  67 percent at Schoo. Others range from 78 percent at Scott to 94.5 percent at Irving.

Were Hawthorne to close, elementary school capacities in the area would range from 75 to 83 percent. Others range from 43 percent at the new Kooser Elementary to 115 percent at Fredstrom.

Those numbers represent just students living in the area, not students transferring in or out. District officials say they use those numbers in drawing attendance areas because it’s impossible to predict where students might transfer with redrawn boundaries.

* Hawthorne parents did their own calculations using 2007-08 enrollment numbers, which include transfer students. Their numbers do not include preschool programs. Those show capacities at Eastridge and Randolph, the two schools that would absorb the Hawthorne resident students, at 100 percent and 92.8 percent if Hawthorne closes.

That includes transfer students currently attending Eastridge and Randolph, but not those attending Hawthorne. There would be no room for them to transfer to  Eastridge and probably not enough for all of them at Randolph.

* Dawes attendance would drop considerably because about  students who live in the Arnold Heights area and are bused to Dawes will go to Schoo Middle School. That’s 307 students this year.

Last year, Dawes had 98 transfer students. There would be room at Culler and Mickle for them.

Danek has said that if Dawes closes, northeast Lincoln will gain only one seat as a result of additions built at Mickle and Culler as part of the bond issue.

She has argued that there’s not enough room for growth in that area without Dawes.

District officials estimate planned additions in the area would eventually add 182 students and Culler and Mickle would have room for them. 

* About 90 ELL students currently bused to Hawthorne would go to Hartley, their neighborhood school. The planning committee’s map shows Hartley’s capacity at 96.5 percent. However, enrollment numbers are considerably lower than the number living in the attendance areas. Figured with enrollment numbers, Hartley is at 60.5 percent capacity. Adding in the 90 ELL kids would bring it to 84.7 percent capacity.

District officials say there is a portable at Hartley but the ELL kids likely wouldn’t be in it. A preschool program would be moved to make room for the ELL students.

Efficiency and savings

The school board says closing Dawes and Hawthorne will be more efficient, citing both cost savings and better use of the buildings.

Here’s a synopsis:

* The district would keep the school buildings. One proposal is to use Hawthorne as a new site for Bryan Community, the alternative high school; and create an alternative middle school program that would be housed at Dawes. 

* District officials say having just 375 living in the Dawes attendance area would make it difficult to have a viable middle school program that offers all the programing available at larger schools. Officials often cite as an example the difficulty of creating a comprehensive band program with so few students.

* District officials estimate the annual savings of closing both schools at $1.19 million.

The major cost savings at  both Hawthorne and Dawes — $258,722 and $931,740, respectively — primarily is staffing. District officials estimate some savings on busing of English Language Learners to Hawthorne and on an approximately $400,000 “small school” subsidy from the LPS general fund to Dawes for equitable programming with larger schools.

* Districtwide, officials say they would save $119,000 in elementary school busing costs and $153,000 in middle school busing costs with the new schools and accompanying attendance areas.

The elementary proposal

The single proposal for elementary school boundaries would close Hawthorne, create new attendance areas for schools being built in both north and south Lincoln and consolidate a number of attendance areas in north and southeast Lincoln that have been divided in recent years to handle overcrowding.

Changes discussed by the board include leaving Hawthorne open, a plan advocated by Danek, and moving a small portion of the Irving Middle School area into Scott, a plan advocated by board member Don Mayhew.

The middle school proposals

The board’s planning committee proposal would close Dawes and those students would go to Mickle, Culler and Schoo.

With the opening of Schoo, about 300 students in the Arnold Heights area would no longer need to be bused to Dawes.

During the debate over the closings, four other proposals surfaced, all of which keep Dawes open. Two of them draw primarily from Mickle, Culler, Goodrich and Schoo to add to the Dawes attendance area.  Two others change all 11 middle school districts to add students to Mickle and Culler and even out attendance areas districtwide.

District officials say the transfer policy likely would have to be changed to make those proposals effective. Danek said that would be necessary only if the district wanted to see immediate change, which has not generally been the philosophy behind the transfer policy.

A proposal by board member Keith Prettyman would keep Dawes open during the 2009-10 school year, transferring Goodrich students there while the school is renovated.

Timeline

Changes in elementary schools in north Lincoln would occur in 2009-10; south Lincoln schools in 2008-09. Middle school changes would take effect in 2009. Hawthorne would close after this school year; Dawes in fall 2009, unless the board voted to keep it open while Goodrich was renovated.