[scene from school pickup at Bessie Rhodes]
On a Wednesday in March, students at the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies are playing outside after school. It’s one of the last days they’ll be together.
District 65 is closing two schools at the end of the school year — Bessie Rhodes and Kingsley Elementary School. But while these schools are closing, the new Foster Elementary school is opening in the fall.
In the early promises to parents when planning to open Foster, District 65 said the school would cost about 40 million dollars to build. Then they told families that the price tag would be closer to 65 million if they wanted to keep the school K through eight. So they made it K through five instead.
Melissa Rosenzweig is co-president of the PTA and a parent at Bessie Rhodes. She is one of many parents who say the promises made by the school board have been broken.
ROSENZWEIG: So much distrust has emerged in this process that a lot of families have had a really hard time making plans because they don’t know if promises will be kept. And also I think there’s some concern about what will the learning environment look like at Foster.
In a statement on their website, District 65 says they are closing schools to “address declining student enrollment, underutilized buildings with increasing maintenance needs, and the need for continued budget reductions.” It also says that they “know that considering school closures is difficult and deeply personal, especially for the school communities who may be most impacted, and are committed to centering the needs of students”
When conversations about school closures began, many parents were not happy about it. They started to voice their opinions to the district during school board meetings and protests.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. But Rosenzweig said it taught students a valuable lesson.
ROSENZWEIG: Those were moments of really wonderful opportunities to teach them
about civic engagement. And not only was it a sort of way to like, here’s how you find
your voice and here’s how you use it, but also one of those really important lessons.
Here’s what it’s like to lose, you know, like, this is what it feels like to try your best and put it all out there and, and not have the outcome that you want.
Rahim Branch is also a parent at Bessie Rhodes who protested the school closure. He says he originally thought Foster was a great idea, but now is not so sure.
RAHIM BRANCH: As the years went on, we just kind of started noticing and becoming
aware of all the differences that was going to happen at the new school in terms of now
we don’t have as much money as we thought we would. So it was like all the things that we thought were gonna happen at the new school that we invested in seemed like they were just gonna go away.
Separating siblings, losing friends and changes in transportation are just a few of the impacts that some parents are concerned about. Other parents, like Peter Bogira, say school closures may be necessary in order for the district to reach its financial goals. His children attend Kingsley Elementary School. When conversations about closing Kingsley began last year, he wasn’t surprised.
PETER BOGIRA: I think as more has come to light about the real situation from a financial standpoint, it became more clear that school closures were going to be a likely
consideration and that we weren’t just gonna be able to get there through other cuts.
But just because Bogira thinks the plan makes sense, like other parents, it doesn’t mean he’s happy about it. It also doesn’t mean there won’t be more closures in the future.
BOGIRA: There’s no graceful way of closing schools. It sucks. And there were some
people in the community that took those words and basically said, because it’s painful, let’s rip the bandaid off fast. But frankly, I think a lot of those people seemed like people who were speaking from a position of, I don’t want my school to be next, so I wanna make sure that we close schools over here to make sure that that doesn’t happen. District 65 is continuing conversations about future school closures and other cuts to reach its financial goals in the coming years.
For WNUR News, I’m Jessica Watts