Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Sacramento News & Review - Downsizing the district - Bites - Opinions - January 24, 2013

Sacramento News & Review - Downsizing the district - Bites - Opinions - January 24, 2013:


Downsizing the district

Neighborhood schools to be shuttered, superintendent's ‘priority schools' spared

By  
cosmog@newsreview.com


This article was published on .

spacer
Hey, Sac city parents, did you vote for Proposition 30 to save public education? Congratulations. School bonds, too? Good for you! Now, say goodbye to your neighborhood school.
Deficits in the Sacramento City Unified School District are expected to ease somewhat—to a mere $10 million or less in 2013-2014—but the school board is preparing to close 11 public elementary schools next month. District people are calling this “rightsizing” the school system, if that sort of corporate mumbo jumbo makes you feel any better.
Each closure is estimated to save about $200,000 to $250,000 a year. That’s about $2.5 million in total annual savings, mostly from shedding the salaries of principals, maintenance and office staff at each site.
The district says the closure list is strictly based on enrollment, and that the process treats all schools equally. But some schools are more equal than others.
Some underenrolled schools are being spared because district officials assume those will see student populations rise when other nearby schools are shuttered. But three of the most underenrolled schools—Oak Ridge, Leataata Floyd and Father Keith B. Kenny—are also being protected because they are among those in Superintendent Jonathan Raymond’s Priority Schools program.
These are schools with low test scor