Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Teachers, Dayton schools reach accord
Pat Lynch, president of Dayton’s teachers’ union, tells me her group reached a tentative contract agreement with the school board this afternoon. She said no details will be released until after the union informs its members about the details on Friday. A ratification vote is set for next Wednesday. If the members approve the deal, any possibility of a strike would be averted.
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Close a brand new school?
(Springfield’s new Schaeffer Middle School)
It’s a real nightmare scenario. A school district builds all new schools in partnership with the state’s building program, carefully tailored to the enrollment of that district at the end of the construction.
But in just a couple years, enrollment drops anew to unprecedented lows. The district enters a financial danger zone is is taken over by the state. An oversight commission, with veto power over the school board, is looking for cost savings and begins to actually say out loud that one of the brand new schools may have to close.
This is the situation in Springfield where my colleague Gail Cetnar reported last week for the News-Sun a state oversight committee wants the district to study the idea of closing a new school.
Dayton, facing its own enrollment and fiscal trouble, may want to keep an eye on what happens.
With regard to Dayton, I’ll caution you right off the bat by noting that enrollment has been fairly steady the past two years and some observers believe the district’s charter school capacity may be close to its limit with 34 charters operating here.
And Dayton already has reduced the size of its construction program because the state’s enrollment projections forsee a smaller school district down the line. The past two years, Dayton has done a far better job of estimating its enrollment than in the past and school officials are confident that the new schools will draw students into the district, stemming any possibility of further decline.
Before coming to the Dayton Daily News, I covered Springfield schools at the News-Sun, and I have to admit I was shocked to see the district’s enrollment is now down to 8,400. It was about 13,500 when I covered schools there just nine years ago. The state drove Dayton crazy with what school officials thought were overly conservative enrollment projections, but its goal is to avoid just what it could be soon facing in Springfield — closing a school it spent millions to build.
Springfield and Dayton are alike in some ways — both are challenged by competition from charters, private schools and have families that frequently relocate to suburban districts as children grow older. And Springfield, like Dayton, depends economically on the shrinking manufacturing sector. As those jobs dry up, some are moving out of both cities.
Springfield’s experience shows that even a construction program that is co-planned with the state can over-estimate enrollment. Like Springfield, Dayton is building a network of neighborhood elementary schools that don’t lend themselves well to redeployment of kids if one school must close.
Dayton still has a long road ahead for its building program, and ample opportunity to make sure the district is “right sized,” to borrow a term often used by Superintendent Percy Mack and school board President Gail Littlejohn.
(Image credit: Bill Lackey, Springfield News-Sun)
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