From the PG:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11228/1167630-53.stm
- Reassurances of community participation regarding the Schenley building were based in part on a committee the Board voted to form back in 2008. PPS then ignored repeated requests to actually form the committee and now proposes to sell the building without committee input.
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Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11228/1167630-53.stm#ixzz1VBB0DyzS
"The board says it has an unprecedented number of unused buildings it cannot afford to maintain given its financial woes."
The "unprecedented number of unused buildings" is likely to get greater with the "unprecedented number" of schools who are not even close to meeting the state of Pennsylvania's minimum "Proficiency" levels in Reading and Math for 2011.
PPS will continue to lose students and close buildings as long as achievement continues NOT to meet the expectations of more than a few points improvement each year. Improvement in PPS is rarely in double digits which are required to meet the standards. Single digit improvement will continue to cause people to leave the district.
Double digit improvement is doable; it really is!
I'm reminded of the woman who got up during the Schenley closing public hearings who had the foresight to tell Roosevelt that residents would have to deal with his decision long after he was gone. The implication was that the short-sightedness of this politician's decision would be felt after he left this "stepping stone" job.
How true.
This was a done deal from the start, and the lack of guts displayed by Lane and her school board is nauseating.
The question that should be asked before we sell anymore buildings is"Can we afford the high amount of schools with 300 students or less?"
Remember Roosevelt replaced closing buildings with low enrollment to closing based on academic achievement, unless you were Clayton, Lemington, UPREP, and now Ft.Pitt who they say has seen gains.
We have many school with even 250 students or less. Could Prospect, Reizenstein, Greenway, or Schenley with it excellent locations and campuses be useful when a new Board gets serious about too many buildings open.
I said on the floor, on the occasion of Roosevelt's first school closing plan, that his plan was so bad the District would struggle with the issue of school closings for years. With the opening, closing, and re-opening of schools. K-5 to K-8 and back to K-5(see the Hill), unfortunately, I was right.
Is there an answer to why they are closing Fort Pitt? Living very close to that building, what we see are, literally, hundreds of new homes going up all around Fort Pitt. It would seem that in a few years, a very few years, we will see hundreds of children who would have just a short walk to school; but now will have to be bussed? Does that make sense? Can anyone explain?
The student population is temporarily down because all of that Garfield Hgts housing was torn down. Now, however, those hundreds of homes are filling up and more are being built???
Schenley, other schools on list, may be sold
http://post-gazette.com/pg/11228/1167630...
Did you guys see this today?
Shortsightedness is the lynch pin of the PPS. Close schools today and don't worry about having to re-open them in a decade.
Sheesh.
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