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The Little Red Caboose at John B. Cary School(Maplewood Ave. between Belmont Ave. and Sheppard Street) |
By DeAnna Griffin
Allow me to make the case in favor of keeping John B. Cary Elementary open. I ask this as an involved parent with two children at Cary Elementary for the past 8 years, as a citizen, a former teacher and as a small business owner. I believe keeping Cary School open is an important priority for the West end neighborhoods and for education in the Richmond Public Schools as a whole.
In a district with many historic and aging buildings, Cary Elementary (which opened in September 1954) is in a relatively new and well-maintained building. It sits in the center of the confluence of Carytown, The Carillon, Byrd Park and the City Stadium neighborhoods in the West End Richmond. Cary Elementary maintains academic accreditation, has excellent and dedicated teachers, offers several sports programs and has an active PTA.
Cary Elementary prepares students for academic success. Most Cary students move on to Albert Hill Middle School, Binford Middle School or to the International Baccalaureate program at Lucille Brown Middle School. Simply put: Cary Elementary is a good school.
However, we can admit there are problems, many problems, facing the district. Richmond Public Schools’ Board and Administration and the citizens of the city know what some of the more serious problems are.
Annually the district has a recurring budget shortfall. We have aging facilities in dire need of maintenance. Our teacher’s wages are stagnant, non-competitive and subject to “compression” meaning our most valuable and experienced teachers are not paid what they would be worth in other districts.
Add to that the fact that RPS has a not-so-top-notch reputation which, ultimately, leads to an overall low rate of enrollment (likely even a low rate of families with children choosing to live in the city). However, none of these problems are solved, or even helped in any significant way by closing Cary Elementary School.
To be sure, RPS Superintendent Dana Bedden has already tasked his administration with crafting viable forward looking solutions to these problems. There’s a Facilities Plan and an Academic Improvement Plan. However I cannot help but think that part of the plan to increase the allocated budget involved the administration threatening closure of several well liked, but socially vulnerable schools, thus mobilizing a large turnout of upset citizens at City Hall.
However, I believe this is actually a reaction from RPS administration and not a plan. The plan to transform RPS into a better district surely does not involve willy-nilly closures and cuts. It involves rebuilding, remodeling, rezoning and rethinking current methods. At the moment, mindful planning and prioritizing the needs of education over sports venues and business back scratching are not prevailing.
Consequently and sadly, Cary Elementary is (once again) sitting on the chopping block.
Cary has long been a gem of a small neighborhood school in the West End of the city, but it’s a school that lacks a lot of the political and fundraising power of neighboring schools. Cary Elementary has been through the wringer of potential closure and redistricting, and due to rezoning in 2013 it has a decreased school zone that includes nearly as much in parks and green space as it does homes.
No one should be surprised that our school is operating under capacity. Cary's low enrollment isn’t due to any failure of performance by the children. Cary attracts many students from out- of-zone under the open enrollment policy.
Low enrollment is a district-wide problem. RPS currently has approximately 5,200 empty seats for all grades K-12, however only 1,212 of those seats are at the elementary school level. There are 13,430 seats in all city wide elementary schools and 12,218 of those seats are filled with students.
In other words, at the elementary level RPS is operating at 91% capacity, which actually is over the ideal capacity stated in the RPS administration’s own facilities guidelines (85 – 90%).
Do you realize that when elementary schools become over crowded the district risks losing funds from the state that are earmarked for the specific purpose of keeping elementary class sizes low?
However, I believe this is actually a reaction from RPS administration and not a plan. The plan to transform RPS into a better district surely does not involve willy-nilly closures and cuts. It involves rebuilding, remodeling, rezoning and rethinking current methods. At the moment, mindful planning and prioritizing the needs of education over sports venues and business back scratching are not prevailing.
Consequently and sadly, Cary Elementary is (once again) sitting on the chopping block.
Cary has long been a gem of a small neighborhood school in the West End of the city, but it’s a school that lacks a lot of the political and fundraising power of neighboring schools. Cary Elementary has been through the wringer of potential closure and redistricting, and due to rezoning in 2013 it has a decreased school zone that includes nearly as much in parks and green space as it does homes.
No one should be surprised that our school is operating under capacity. Cary's low enrollment isn’t due to any failure of performance by the children. Cary attracts many students from out- of-zone under the open enrollment policy.
Low enrollment is a district-wide problem. RPS currently has approximately 5,200 empty seats for all grades K-12, however only 1,212 of those seats are at the elementary school level. There are 13,430 seats in all city wide elementary schools and 12,218 of those seats are filled with students.
In other words, at the elementary level RPS is operating at 91% capacity, which actually is over the ideal capacity stated in the RPS administration’s own facilities guidelines (85 – 90%).
Do you realize that when elementary schools become over crowded the district risks losing funds from the state that are earmarked for the specific purpose of keeping elementary class sizes low?
Since RPS elementary schools, when seen as a whole, are not suffering from low enrollments, a proposal to close five elementary schools to save only a portion of $3 million dollars out of an $18 million dollar budget shortage, is definitely the wrong choice.
Certainly closing a high performing and well-loved school like Cary Elementary will damage the city’s reputation and lead to overcrowding in other area schools. Mary Mumford and Fox Elementary Schools are operating at over 100% capacity. The many Cary students who attend from out of zone will have to return to their zone school, likely a full school at or over capacity.
The current proposal to send families from Cary to Carver Elementary School creates a gerrymandered Carver/Cary school district that resembles a slice of pie with a fan shaped slice removed. Furthermore, this proposal flies in the face of RPS' own stated goal of providing community schools. What kind of sense does it make to send children who attend a school less than a mile from their homes, past two other schools that are 1.5 miles from their homes to yet another aging facility about 3.5 miles away.
The proposed plan reeks of class and racial discrimination in that it combines schools with no proximity or relations other than their statuses as high minority Title 1 schools.
Closing Cary will likely be the last straw for many area Cary Elementary families. Many will likely to pull their families from the district entirely, file discrimination lawsuits and move from the city.
John B. Cary is a legacy school that alumni are proud to have attended. It was once a model school and was considered the best elementary in the city. It was one of the first Richmond neighborhood schools to embrace and thrive under integration. It still looks like a living embodiment of Reverend Martin Luther King’s l Have a Dream Speech where little children of many races have joined hands to grow, learn and play together hopefully forming lifetime bonds and moving on to positions of leadership throughout their community.
The school is primed to return to that level of achievement once again with support given from central administration, but rather than being championed by the district and having our successes celebrated, Cary Elementary has been mishandled, toyed with and fed a steady diet of uncertainty.
I ask this on behalf of Cary families, our teachers and the entire city. Please support our school during this contentious budget cycle. The answer to improving RPS' middle and high schools logically begins on the elementary level.
Even if you think that the potential closing of Cary Elementary won't directly affect you, know this: it will. Please support our efforts. We are all in this together.
Finally, please join us and all the other concerned members of the community, when we march in support of Richmond Public Schools. We will meet on Monday, April 25 at 5 p.m. at Martin Luther King Middle School. We will march from there to Richmond City Hall for the 6 p.m. City Council meeting.
Respectfully,
DeAnna Griffin
[Editor's Note: Please see sidebar on far right side of this page for a complete listing of names, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers for members of both Richmond City Council and the RPS School Board.]
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