Good Intentions Don’t Make Up
For Bad Decision To Close Schools
I don’t envy members of the St. Charles City School District Board of Education. They made some tough decisions recently to close two wonderful grade schools that have meant a lot to this community for generations. I believe in their hearts they felt they were doing the right thing, but that doesn’t mean they made the right decision.
Closing Benton and Blackhurst was shortsighted and discriminatory.
Good neighborhood schools are an important factor in where people want to live. Busing children out of their neighborhood to go to an elementary school makes the neighborhood less attractive to younger families. Therefore, the less families that might consider buying in an area, the smaller the resale market for homes in that neighborhood. That decreases property values as homes sit on the market longer and homeowners are forced to lower their sales price.
Other than assistance from the State, our School Districts are totally dependent on property taxes. As property values rise, the schools benefit. But when property values decline, as they are in St. Louis County, the schools are hurt.
The City of St. Charles and the St. Charles School District should share the common goal of wanting stable neighborhoods with increasing property values. That larger goal was somehow lost in the press of trying to cut costs for the short term. In the long run, closing both of these elementary schools hurts the economic stability of the district.
The problem is compounded by Benton and Blackhurst serving adjoining areas. Following on the now decades old closing of McKinley School, the entire Northeast quadrant of our City is without a local public grade school. Now it is not an insignificant fact that this is also the most blue collar working class quadrant of our community. Which brings me to my claim that the closing of these schools was discriminatory.
That is not to say that there was any overt intention on the part of board members to discriminate, but simply to bring to their attention that the end result was discriminatory against people based on income. Some board members cited standardized test scores as the reason they chose to close Benton and Blackhurst over other elementary schools.
Neither of these schools is poorly maintained. Therefore what building you are in doesn’t affect test scores. Were lower test scores the fault of the teachers? I don’t think so. There are wonderful and talented teachers serving these two school populations. Besides, wouldn’t it be easier to move a few teachers than close buildings and move hundreds of students?
So what is the single biggest factor that impacts test scores? The answer is economics. There are more factors working against kids from households with more limited incomes. There is often more stress at home. In the case of Benton School, I’ve been told by a former employee that one-half of the student population received subsidized lunches.
So to say the decision to close Benton and Blackhurst was based on “test scores” is terribly disingenuous to these students. Nobody ever told then in advance, “Hey kids, if you don’t do better on your standardized tests this year we’re going to close your school.” There wasn’t exactly a level playing field going into such testing either. The school district for years was busing children from the major apartment complexes near I-70 past Lincoln School to Benton.
If you say the school closings were based on test scores, then you are in fact saying students from low-income families were discriminated against in the process.
I also have a hard time grasping how closing schools saves much money unless you significantly increase class sizes and lay off teachers. The classrooms at Benton and Blackhurst are not sitting there half-empty. They have the same number of students as other classrooms at other elementary schools in the district. Lincoln and Benton are smaller student bodies overall, just because the number of individual classrooms is less…not because classrooms aren’t utilized to their fullest.
So what do you save by closing schools? You save a principal’s salary, a librarian, perhaps an extra janitor and lunchroom worker. Eighty percent of the salaries are still the individual classroom teachers. Benton and Blackhurst were paid off years ago and recently renovated. There are utility cost savings, but again, only if you increase class sizes at other schools. There aren’t just empty classrooms at these other schools to move the students into.
In their defense, the School District is faced with a Governor and State Legislature that have failed to fully fund the School Foundation Formula and have perpetuated an unfair system of distributing vital State resources to our schools. How unfair is it? Well for over ten years the resources of nine casinos have been pouring into the State to support public education…literally hundreds of millions of dollars.
Our school district has received none of that additional money from the State because we are in a special category. I’ve asked the question, what if the district weren’t a so-called “hold harmless” school district under the State’s funding formula. I have been given the incredible answer that in that case we would have received even less! Less than nothing from riverboat gaming isn’t exactly what voters were promised when they approved gaming in Missouri.
The district does, however, receive property tax from the land-based development of the casino property. I’m told that amounts to over $600,000 per year. Which is a potential bright spot in the future fortunes of the district. The casino currently has under construction a $240,000,000 25-story hotel and garage complex.
Local school property taxes on these additions should exceed what the district currently receives on the facilities in place now. The hotel is scheduled to open in 2007, so the district would receive the full benefit late in 2008. An extra $700,000 or so could go a long way towards keeping schools open.
So would a change in attitude on the part of our elected leaders in Jefferson City.
The issue of school closings and the future of Benton and Blackhurst may not be cast in concrete as yet. Voters will have an opportunity in April of 2007 to register their feelings in the school board elections. Candidates will have the chance to debate and discuss these decisions and their impact on the community.
We need creative ways to serve the needs of all students, regardless of the economic circumstances of their families. We need to provide neighborhood schools convenient to all sections of the community. We need to promote stable neighborhoods and increasing property values. We need to demand results from our State leaders and the financial resources from gaming revenues our kids were promised. Rather than pitting half of the school district against the other in a giant game of “rob your neighbor”, we need consensus on a long-term approach that makes us feel good about the future of St. Charles City School District and proud of our past.
