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Health & Fitness

Elmbrook School Board Short-Sighted in Its Actions

Why is the school board ignoring the recommendations of the Enrollment Management Study Team?

I, along with a roomful of fellow concerned residents, attended Tuesday’s meeting of the Elmbrook School Board hoping to gain insight into the nine school closing options and to offer some input as those options were reduced.  Instead, I found myself losing confidence that the board is making this decision with the best interests of the students – and the future of this community - in mind. 

To his credit, Tom Gehl had obviously done thoughtful homework on the subject before Tuesday’s meeting, presenting clear statements regarding his opinions on the nine options and the way in which those opinions were derived.  Unfortunately, none of the other board members were similarly direct, asserting that they didn’t yet have enough information to eliminate options or suggesting that certain scenarios be modeled before they could formulate an opinion.  Even though the board eventually agreed to eliminate four options, Elmbrook is still facing a scenario in which four of our six elementary schools are on the chopping block, leaving us no closer to knowing what’s going to happen than we were on Tuesday morning.

The most distressing aspect of our current situation is that, despite the recommendations of the Enrollment Management Study Team, there seems to be a singular focus on imposing limits in order to reduce expenses and no discussion about how to encourage and plan for potential growth in order to increase revenues.  Of the two options recommended by the EMST, only one involved closing a school.  Both options favored reinstating 4K, converting Chapter 220 students to Open Enrollment, and increasing available Open Enrollment slots, all of which would raise revenue for the district to close the budget gap.  Significantly, the EMST report also clearly states that the so-called Base Case was NOT intended to be used to justify scaling schools to the minimum capacity required to educate resident only students, but rather as a mere tool for analysis and comparison purposes. 

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While these other methods to close the gap are increasingly dismissed as third rail issues, residents would be wise to consider the potential negative effects of the proposed school closings on the community at large.  If the district dramatically scales down capacity, all students will suffer the consequences in the form of larger – perhaps much larger - class sizes when enrollment begins to rise again (as it almost certainly will when the economy and housing market improve).  The option to close both Tonawanda and Hillside is particularly troubling, as it will leave only one or two sections per grade level available for future growth for the entire district.  With 469 district homes currently on the market, eliminating sections in this way seems extremely short-sighted.  If we are truly concerned about maintaining and improving on our past successes as a district, we must start looking at why enrollment is declining and take proactive measures to boost it, instead of simply reacting to the decline with measures that promise to have a long-term negative effect both on our students and our reputation as a district.

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