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Escambia Elementary Targeted For Closure
January 15, 2011
The Escambia County School Board is targeting another elementary school for closure and consolidation.
Superintendent Malcolm Thomas is recommending that the board approve the closure of Spencer Bibbs Elementary School, one of the oldest in the county due to low enrollment numbers and high costs. Thomas said that last year the district lost $600,000 by keeping the school open with just 241 students. This year, he estimates the drain on the county system to be up to $1 million to keep the doors open.
If the school is closed, just over half of the students would be shifted to a new, yet-unnamed downtown elementary school that opens in the fall. The remainder would attend O.J. Semmes Elementary.
Hallmark and Allie Yniestra elementaries will also be closed and consolidated into the new downtown elementary school.
Also during Thomas’ term as superintendent, he recommended the closure and consolidation of Carver/Century K-8 with students shifted to Bratt Elementary and Ernest Ward Middle schools.
Pictured top: Escambia County Commissioner Marie Young reads to students at Spencer Bibbs Elementary School. Courtesy photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Comments
7 Responses to “Escambia Elementary Targeted For Closure”
Nah, I’m not saying it should be that way, but that it is. Not wall paper, of course, but the situation is such that there is a form of flight from some schools which ultimately winds up shutting down the schools.
Teachers from “F schools” who transfer to “A schools” magically become “A teachers.” Or so it tends to seem based on how the students perform. Unless the transfer changed the teacher, something else created the F setting. Or go the other way, take accepted “A teachers” and move them to “F schools” and see if the students magically turn into “A students.”
It’s a simple experiment. It makes more sense than assuming teachers decide to fail to teach students in certain schools or that all the teachers in a given school simply can’t teach.
I consider it silly to build structures simply to abandon them a few years later, but that is what our current set-up is bound to do. It also gives them an excuse to move out of neighborhoods which scare outsiders. though. I sometimes wonder if that isn’t part of the dishonesty and the real reason.
David for perfect neighborhoods
perfect teachers
perfect students
proper expenditures of public funds
So Mr. Green what you are saying is ( in a round about way ) that if you dont like the wall paper… then move to a new building, Instead of changing the wall paper. I think alot of fault should go to the teachers, if they arent performing up to standerds then they should have to go not the students.
REGARDING:
“Seems like some other options could be thought up to keep the smaller schools open.”
No reason to keep them open if nobody’s attending and/or learning.
I imagine Spencer Bibbs was the same as other schools. Students attending did poorly. Their poor performance gave the school a bad grade and a bad reputation. This allowed parents who cared for their children to send them to other schools who had students who were not performing badly.
If those children misbehaved badly, they could be sent back to the poor school. The ones not learning tend to be the ones misbehaving, by coincidence. Overwhelmingly, the ones remaining were not going to do well no matter what. This lowered the reputation even more, causing more parents to pull their children and send them elsewhere.
Lower attendance, lower average performance, more problems per student population. Your set costs don’t change all that much but your students being taught drops. What’s more, they are the ones needing the most attention so servicing them makes it even more expensive.
Close down the school. Then find some other school with problems from problem children and repeat the cycle until you have build and abandoned a mess of structures.
This is all based on the concept that poor performance is the fault of the teacher, not the student or how his parent (quite often singular) raised him. This will continue to be a case of dog chasing own tail until political leaders get wise and treat the problem rather than just the symptoms.
Don’t hold your breath.
David for perfect parents
What I don’t understand is if you already have three schools buildings, how is it supposed to save money to spend bookoodles building a new one and then leaving the other three sitting empty? It doesn’t really make financial sense to me.
Haven’t figured out closing a school saves money. You have to shift kids to other schools, in turn, increasing costs in those schools, not to mention overcrowding and kids not getting the attention in school that they need. Seems like some other options could be thought up to keep the smaller schools open.
I think this is great – any chance of more consolidations and more savings to taxpayers from the Superintendant?
shutting down the schools in century was never a good idea, they need to figure out how to make them work there, instead of giving up on them. what kind of message does that send out to our youth?