Oooh, the Board of Education has gone and done it. The public demanded the Board look for ways to make Lincoln Public Schools more efficient, and the Board had the nerve to suggest close two schools, Hawthorne Elementary and Dawes Middle School. Naturally, parents are up in arms.
Assuming the Board can adequately demonstrate that the schools will not be needed in the foreseeable future, and that the replacement schools can handle the additional student load for the foreseeable future, I'm all in favor of the idea. I am sympathetic to the plight of families who chose their home based on its proximity to one of the threatened schools -- we chose our home in part because it sits mere blocks from both an elementary and middle school -- but emotional appeals just aren't that persuasive if substantial efficiency improvements can be demonstrated.
The debate is still in its early stages and there is plenty of information yet to be gathered. What are your thoughts at this point?
Comments
See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
I don’t see how MIckle, which has been crowded for years, can handle students from Dawes. When they did some renovation to Mickle a couple ofyears ago, perhaps they should have added on.
I live down the street from Hawthorne and I couldn’t care less if they close it. I really just don’t want it to sit empty. It does sound like they have some plans for using both schools.
I think that one of my opinions for a long time has been that LPS needs to be more efficient. If you could close an old, outdated 80-year old school with 250 students and take that staff and put it in a newer school that can handle a lot more students, it makes sense. It sucks for the families, but LPS is screwing families all over the city - we live on a small island that is supposed to go to a school many, many miles away while all the neighborhood nearby goes to Maxey. Logic would say that as Maxey is made larger and all the boundaries are re-drawn, that problem should get fixed, yet I don’t hold my breath.
@Fletch: You might want to check the proposed boundaries (PDF) to see if that still applies.
Mr. W - attaboy.
Thanks for the link. That does back up my logic that my ‘hood should be at Maxey. Now, I imagine when humans get their hands on it, it will get mucked up, but I like that map a LOT.
Share your thoughts with the community.
Commenting is no longer permitted on this post.