Parents of pupils at Little Rock's Franklin Elementary and neighbors to the school turned out Wednesday to question and fight proposals by district leaders to close Franklin and other campuses next school year as a way to cut expenses.
Some of the more than 100 audience members at the evening forum led by Superintendent Mike Poore were angry, demanding or resistant to the recommendation. Others choked back tears or pleaded for alternatives that would make it possible to maintain the 314-student school at 1701 S. Harrison St., which was built in 1949 and later renovated and expanded.
"This is the first place we have felt at home," Ivy Chan, a parent of three, told Poore. She called Franklin "that rare school" that excels both in teaching and in providing a family friendly environment.
Ebony Adams, the school's Parent Teacher Association president, questioned why Franklin was at the top of the district's list to be closed. She argued that a drop in the school's enrollment was the fault of the district relocating Franklin's pre-kindergarten program to the Geyer Springs Early Childhood Center that opened this school year.
Poore has proposed that Franklin pupils be reassigned to Stephens Elementary as part of a plan to cut $11.6 million from the district's $355 million annual budget.
Other components of the budget-cutting plan that Poore will send to Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key -- who acts as the school board and has the final say in the state-controlled district -- call for closing Woodruff Early Childhood Education Center and Hamilton Learning Academy and converting Wilson Elementary into the district's alternative education center for middle and high school students, which is now at Hamilton.
Woodruff pre-kindergarten pupils would be reassigned to Martin Luther King and Carver Magnet elementary schools, according to the proposal. The Wilson pupils would be divided among Bale, Brady, Romine and Western Hills elementaries.
The budget plan additionally calls for saving $3 million through more efficient staffing of the district's middle and high schools and cutting about $2.5 million in school bus transportation expenses.
The cuts for 2017-18, combined with budget cuts made in earlier years, are needed to offset the loss of $37.3 million a year in state desegregation aid to the district. That special state funding ends after the 2017-18 school year because of a 2014 federal court-approved settlement in a long-running Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit.
The state aid was largely used to pay for academic programs and staffing at magnet and specialty schools, for bus transportation to those schools and to supplement teacher retirement and health insurance costs in the district.
One parent of a Woodruff pupil told Poore that she didn't accept his rationale for the budget cuts, citing the district's ability to open the new Pinnacle View Middle School in west Little Rock.
Latoya Gilliam, another parent, objected to the district's history of closing schools and "tearing up" communities. She and others worried aloud that closing schools will result in larger numbers of children per teacher in a classroom, leaving the teachers with little time to work with individual children.
Poore, who attempted to respond to each speaker, said classes might grow slightly but would continue to meet state limits on class size. He also said larger schools would have more resources in the form of specialists and co-workers to support teachers.
State Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, who has lived a block away from Franklin since 2010, said Wednesday that she was attracted to the community because it is in the city's core. And while it has been at times neglected as the result of white flight, she said the area around the University of Arkansas at Little Rock can be something different and special -- as long as it has a school.
She said it is unfair for one section of the district to bear the brunt of budget cuts.
"Those of us on the south side of Interstate 630 and at Woodruff get all the pain and agony, and nobody else in this district -- besides the employees -- are asked to do anything else but attend their schools and live their comfortable lives and everything will be OK. It won't be OK," Elliott said.
Anika Whitfield, a leader of the Save Our Schools grass-roots organization opposing the district's budget cuts, asked longtime associate superintendents what they have done to justify their salaries and why Poore left his job as superintendent in Bentonville for the Little Rock job if it wasn't to "take away our schools."
"If you are sincere about the bright futures of the city of Little Rock and the bright futures of the students of Little Rock School District, I would like for you to open an account tomorrow so that people can give $8 million or whatever it is .... we need to keep these schools open," Whitfield told Poore.
Former School Board member C.E. McAdoo called for Poore to do a study on the effect of school closures, just as environmental impact studies are done before building projects.
Rohn Muse, president of the Forest Hills Neighborhood Association and a former member of the city Planning Commission, cited central Little Rock's successful opposition to the building of a technology park that would have affected as many as 325 houses in the area.
"Please don't underestimate our ability to save our homes," Muse told Poore.
Metro on 01/19/2017