Sacramento city district's worst practices on school closures
Sacramento News & Review
By Cosmo Garvin
cosmog@newsreview.com
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The administration wants to shutter 11 elementary schools—one out of every five run by the district. It’s a drastic solution, suited for a drastic problem. Unfortunately, it’s not clear what problem the school board and SuperintendentJonathan Raymond are trying to solve.
Is it the district’s short-term budget deficit? We won’t know the size of the shortfall until the state budget becomes clearer, but we do know school closures—estimated to save only $2.5 million a year—likely won’t close the gap. Where will the rest of the money come from? What alternative cost-saving measures have been considered, and then rejected, before escalating to the nuclear option of closing schools?
Or is the district trying to solve a long-term problem of declining enrollment and structural deficit? That’s not a new problem. Why ram the solution down the public’s throat at the last minute? (District officials are allowing just five weeks between announcing the closures and the final vote by the district board of trustees, scheduled on Thursday, February 21.)
Maybe some school closures make sense. The California Department of Education suggests a number of “best practices” to help the public decide. It starts with formation of something called a District Advisory Committee “before decisions are made about school closure.”
The CDE says: “Gathering the facts must be as credible, transparent and non-political as possible. So, at the very least, the DAC …
