Understanding the consequences of school boundaries
Tom Bracciano, division director of operations and facilities planning, has been serving as the chairman of the boundary committee since 1993. He can understand why parents on the east side of town feel left behind when comparing the situation of their elementary schools with the schools on the west side.
“We have more schools than we need now,” Bracciano said. “We could have closed more.”
New York elementary school, on the east side, is one of Lawrence’s poorest elementary schools. Teachers at New York know that the school’s fate depends on the number of enrolled children and on the boundary committee’s future decisions. Minority parents don’t want their children to suffer from a poor education because of where they live. To better students’ education, New York elementary school has developed special programs to prepare poor students to live among middle-class people.
Lawrence Public Schools works independently from the city of Lawrence. City Hall has little power to influence its decision. Rick Gammill, director of special operations, safety and transportation, says that the school district meets quarterly with the city commission especially to discuss growth issues. Gammill says that the Board of Education, the county and the city discuss topics that affect all three entities.
If parents have a complaint or want their children to attend a school out of their area, they go to the school district. The school district handles boundary issues case by case. The school district is in charge of providing transportation for students. This also is based on a case by case analysis. Gammill said that last year, the Board of Education asked the boundary committee to focus on elementary schools. After eight months of study, the committee changed the boundary between Quail Run and Deerfield elementary schools on the north-west side of Lawrence. The committee changed the boundary because one school was losing children while the other school was gaining them.
Parents in east Lawrence fear that the committee might change a boundary making one school area out of two. Parents are willing to talk about the issue but wish to have their names kept secret. They say that Lawrence is a small town in a conservative state and “you never know what might happen.”
Parents say that if the Board of Education has to close a school, it would choose one on the east side. Minority parents know that their children are not born less intelligent than white Americans but feel they are treated as if they are. They say east Lawrence is dying and the school district won’t do anything about it because it is a poor area. Gammill disagrees, saying that Prairie Park, on the east side, is one of Lawrence’s newest schools.
Bracciano says that the committee has closed schools in east Lawrence, but not due to social status or race. “The east side has become a very popular place to live for students and families with no kids,” Bracciano said. “That’s why we had to close some schools.” Bracciano says that when the committee changes a boundary, most of the time people concerned get angry. “It’s always an emotional process to change boundaries,” Bracciano said.
Bracciano says that you have to look at the problem from a realistic perspective. “Parents say we are killing their neighborhood when we close a school. I tell them that it is the opposite; schools close because people leave the neighborhood,” Bracciano said.
The 2005/06 Lawrence public schools enrollment report says that “people have many choices available to them that directly impact enrollment trends. People may be terminated from their place of employment or relocate to another locality.” The report says: “If household sizes are decreasing, there may be the opportunity to reconfigure boundaries and eliminate the need for utilizing mobile classrooms.”
When teachers don’t match up with the children anymore, it raises funding issues to pay the teachers. Bracciano said that a school needed to have more than 350 students to employ a full-time librarian and nurse. A school also needs more than 400 students to function and be viable. Unfortunately, Bracciano said there has been a decline in the overall student count for the last five years.
New York elementary school currently has 152 students. Most of the children attending New York come from minority and low-income families. New York receives the same amount of money from the school district as any other elementary school in Lawrence. Because of the background of its students, the school also receives money from special federal programs such as Title One and Reading First.
New York principal Nancy DeGarmo takes pride in talking about the school and students’ academic achievements. Last year, New York did better than the district average in the state assessment. DeGarmo said the school couldn’t afford to spend time having students cut out decorations for the classrooms because it constantly has to focus on students’ special needs or more important activities.
“New York doesn’t provide fancy stuff,” DeGarmo says. “New York provides education.” This is exactly what parents and committee members strive for: a good level of education for children of all races and social classes. This might be an easier goal for a school in a rich area, but New York has its own way to keep children focused on education. “We work really hard to accommodate parents’ schedules,” DeGarmo says.
The school is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Boys and Girls Club participates in the before and after school programs. DeGarmo wants to make sure that art, music and physical education are not left out of the children’s schedule. Students from the University of Kansas come in to talk about a particular topic they study. Children get the chance to do anything school-related with the staff that other children do at home with their parents.
DeGarmo says there is a huge gap between social classes in the United States. Children from poor families struggle when among students from the middle class. DeGarmo says that this is especially true in High School. Poor children are excluded from the school spirit unless they are outstanding athletes. She says that one of the main goals of New York is to teach its students those hidden rules that will help them make the transition from their world into the middle-class world and make them successful through their academic career.
Doctor Ruby Payne, an expert on the mindsets of economic classes and on crossing socio-economic lines, wrote in “A framework for understanding poverty” that “students need to be taught the hidden rules of middle class, not in denigration of their own but rather as another set of rules than can be used if they so choose.”
Payne stresses the importance of role models for children. “Educators have tremendous opportunities to influence some of the non-financial resources that make such a difference in student’s lives,” she said. “It costs nothing to be an appropriate role model.” This is what DeGarmo, teachers and staff provide with after-school programs. This helps achieve the school boundary committee and parents’ goal of a good education for every child in Lawrence.
DeGarmo says equality doesn’t mean equitability. Giving people the same thing doesn’t mean giving them what they need. As former congressman Michael Harrington said: “Life is lived in common, but not in community.” This is an easy way to understand minority parents’ frustration when discussing boundary issues. The committee’s job is to keep up with demographic changes and reorganize the school areas accordingly. These changes remind DeGarmo that her school must constantly look for new ways to keep New York a viable school.