In that situation, he would recommend the district pay teachers stipends to keep them at the schools under closure threat.Ī teacher at one of the schools set to be closed said she wasn’t interested in money. Staff at other schools could feel uncertain about the future of their own schools. Munn has said consistently that decisions made under the plan are interrelated and cannot proceed independently.Īmong the board’s other options Tuesday were scrapping the long-term facilities plan altogether or pausing it while the board reviewed more history and gathered new feedback from the community to consider changes.īut doing that would destabilize several schools in the region, Munn said. Those include the creation of two new magnet schools on the campuses of closed schools and the construction of two new buildings.īlueprint APS is the district’s long-term plan to respond to declining enrollment in western parts of the district and growth on its eastern edge. The district has already closed six schools as part of the Blueprint plan and committed over $75 million dollars to new projects. “It would just be me randomly changing my mind - until you change that criteria,” Munn said.
But Munn explained that it was his belief that this was the best path forward, and absent new guidelines, he had no basis on which to tell another school that they would be closed instead. Some board members Tuesday were still troubled that Munn ignored their March vote and presented the same school closure recommendations again. After hours of discussion in multiple meetings, the board had trouble articulating new criteria and sometimes questioned why they should be the ones to create new guidelines. Munn had pressed the board on whether they wanted to change the criteria he used to decide that these two schools were the most appropriate to close. They had urged the board in public comment to honor that prior decision and keep the schools open.īut because of the board’s governance policies, when the board rejected the superintendent’s decision, he was obligated to come back again with another proposal.
The 4-3 vote came just two months after the same board had voted to spare the schools, and some parents yelled at board members after the vote.
0 kommentar(er)
