Supporters make their case for Cedar Rapids schools

Supporters of the four Cedar Rapids elementary schools under consideration for closure - Harrison, Madison, Monroe and Polk - took to the microphone Monday night to address the Cedar Rapids school board.

Linda Seger, president of the Northwest Neighborhood Association, pointed to Harrison Elementary as a source of stability for students who went through the 2008 flood. She said returning to the school, to teachers who know them and care about them, was part of their recovery process.

“Schools are more than buildings,” Seger said. “Schools are the children within.”

Jennifer Hill, the parent of a Polk Elementary first-grader, emphasized the school's record of academic success.

“Polk has outstanding academics,” Hill said. “If it didn't, I wouldn't be asking you to save the school.”

Jen Kovach, co-president of the Madison Elementary PTA, cited Madison's enrollment numbers as a reason to keep it open.

District administrators have pointed to declining enrollment as a factor for school closures. But Kovach said Madison's 2011-12 enrollment represents a 9 percent increase over last year, with 20 percent of its students choosing to attend Madison over their home school. One percent of Madison's students open-enroll in the school from outside districts.

“These are families that are specifically here for Madison,” Kovach said.

“Closing schools won't help anything - it's going to hurt,” said Randy Nading, the father of four Cedar Rapids students. “It's going to hurt the community, it's going to hurt my kids.”

Jim Craig, who also has four children in the district, served on the Enrollment Study Stakeholder Committee as a parent representative. He presented the committee's recommendations to the school board last night.

Those recommendations include proposals that would either close Harrison, Monroe and Polk elementary schools, or Madison, Monroe and Polk schools. In both proposals, Grant Early Childhood Center would become a K-5 school and Wilson a 6-8 school.

Craig said the recommendations help close the socioeconomic gap among district elementary schools and create a uniform K-5 elementary and 6-8 middle school structure.

There are also two proposals for the district's high schools. Each one shifts boundaries to move more students into Washington High School, which has fewer students than Jefferson or Kennedy. Craig said committee members were evenly split on these proposals, both of which equalize programs and populations at all three high schools, alleviate overcrowding and allow for future growth.

“It's a little disconcerting to make these presentations to you, knowing it will cause concern in the district,” Craig told board members.

Still, he said, committee members were charged with making recommendations that met the enrollment criteria established by the school board last spring. Those include equity and access to programs; alleviating overcrowding; the consideration of future growth and decline; the reduction of operating costs; the maintenance of neighborhood schools; and uniform grade configurations (K-5, 6-8 and 9-12).

Superintendent Dave Benson said he will make his recommendations to the school board on Feb. 13. That's after two public input sessions, on Feb. 2 and Feb. 9, where the community can have back-and-forth conversations about the recommendations.

“We're community members - we're part of this,” school board President John Laverty told the audience. “Many of us have kids, or have had kids, in the district. We're volunteers in this capacity to do what's best for Cedar Rapids and for our kids.”