Questions arise as school recommendations near

CEDAR RAPIDS - More questions were asked, and some answered, at the Cedar Rapids school district's second public input session last night.

An estimated 350 people attended the forum at Kennedy High School, bringing their questions and concerns about the district's ongoing enrollment and facilities studies to Superintendent Dave Benson, district administrators, school board members and the consultants who completed both studies.

“It has been a tough year,” said Sue Serbousek, an alternative kindergarten teacher at Monroe Early Childhood School.

Monroe is one of four elementary schools facing possible closure. The school serves only kindergarten students, so current students won't be affected by a school closure - they will be moving to a different elementary building next year already - but Serbousek has had concerns from future Monroe families.

“I just tell them there will still be kindergarten registration, there will still be kindergarten, it just might not be at Monroe,” she said.

Tara Bulman, a Cleveland Elementary School parent, attended the forum to get a closer look at the proposed boundary changes.

“I've heard so many rumors,” she said. “I wanted to see what was true and what wasn't.”

The questions didn't end after the forum, though. School board members then met in a work session to get answers to the questions they proposed to administrators last month. Benson said the gathering was meant to address these questions and concerns before he makes his recommendations at Monday's school board meeting.

The big question addressed was one the community has asked for months: Why were Harrison, Madison, Monroe and Polk the schools identified for possible closure?

Benson said the enrollment statement committee centered its discussions around clusters of schools.

“The reality is any of the schools in those clusters could have been selected,” Benson said.

Two other elementary schools were suggested for closure. Both Cleveland and Garfield elementaries were discussed, based on the data from the enrollment and facility studies.

Though Garfield's building capacity is 400 students, its current enrollment is 187. Cleveland has space for 500 students but serves just 309. Both school buildings were identified as “borderline” in the facility study conducted by Shive-Hattery Inc.

Ultimately, though, the four schools on the list were selected after committee members studied student travel, where students reside within the school's boundaries and the economics of the current facilities - specifically what it would cost to bring the buildings to a uniform standard.

Benson said the economics of the schools' neighborhoods were not an issue during the committee's discussions, disputing comments that the closures target the community's poorer neighborhoods.

“This issue was not around targeting the poor,” he said. “It was around where we've had enrollment decline.”

Benson told the school board he still plans to make his recommendations at Monday night's meeting. He said the input he received from the two public sessions will be considered when he formalizes his recommendations, as will the proposals the enrollment committee presented to the school board in early January.

Still, he stressed that his recommendations will be made independently.

“I don't feel absolutely bound to make recommendations because they came from the (enrollment) committee,” Benson said.