Last TUSD desegregation hearing tonight
The TUSD Governing Board voted to proceed with the closure process of more schools at Tuesday night’s Governing Board meeting. Parents, teachers, students and community members filled the large Catalina High School auditorium to capacity.
The Board met to close eight schools and in the end voted to begin the process of closing six more, making a total of fourteen schools slated for closure.
The District has been operating in the red according to Dr. Mark Stegeman due to its continuing decline in enrollment and increase in administrative costs. The District spends little more than half of its money on classrooms.
Last night’s meeting went late into the night, and Board member Michael Hicks said it was difficult to hear what he believed were misrepresentations from TUSD administrative staff about the situation at some of the schools and the rational provided for the closings.
The schools slated for closing include: Brichta, Menlo Park, Manzo, Cragin, Sewell, Corbett, Lyons, Warren, Fort Lowell/Townsend, Schumaker, Carson, Hohokam, Wakefield and Howenstine.
The estimated savings is less than half of the shortfall the administration claims they are facing next year. According to Board member Hicks, the District “frittered away the stimulus money spending like there was no tomorrow and now there is no tomorrow for some of these schools and their neighborhoods.” The District has been using the stimulus money like something else would come up and from the past Boards and administrations and their school closures to the current administration reality has been ignored all along.”
The next step in the Master Plan is cuts to non-teaching positions, including district and school administrators, clerical staff, tech support, and custodians, plus slightly larger class sizes, which means some teacher lay-offs.
Hicks says that the cost of janitors is low, but it looks like they will go before the administration cuts any more administrators.
None of the 14 proposed closures is final; public hearings will be held Dec. 8 and 10 before final votes are taken on Dec. 20.
Board member Adelita Grijalva and her father, progressive Congressman Raul Grijalva, have expressed concerned for only largely Hispanic majority schools although the vast majority of school that have been closed and are proposed for closure over are in the predominately desegregated schools on the east and central Tucson schools.
However, those have experienced the largest enrollment drops due to the District’s practice of funneling money to political efforts rather than academic endeavors.
In his statement delivered by a spokesperson last night, Grijalva focused once again on the need for “culturally relevant” education for Hispanic students referring to the controversial Mexican American Studies classes.
Those classes were also the subject of another desegregation hearing held across town at the same time as the Governing Board meeting.
Little over 60 people should up to express their views on the Unitary Status Plan proposed by the Special Master for the federal court desegregation case. Chicano activists, Salomon Baldenegro and Isabel Garcia, once again issued demands that the Mexican American Studies classes be reinstated and offered to all Hispanic students in from grades k through 12.
There is one last desegregation meeting tonight at Palo Verde High School from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The public hearing dates and locations for school closures are:
December 8, 2012 – 10:00 a.m.
Catalina High School Auditorium
3645 E. Pima St.
December 10, 2012 – 6:00 p.m.
Catalina High School Auditorium
3645 E. Pima St.